


fear no fate, want no world

by centuriesofexistence



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fix-It, Fluff, Healing, Ice Nation - Freeform, War, What Should Have Been, canon divergent from 303 onward, includes all show characters but I didn't feel like tagging them, no AI
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-04-28 08:00:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14444874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centuriesofexistence/pseuds/centuriesofexistence
Summary: Wanheda has bowed before the Commander, but it has not quelled the disquiet among the thirteen clans. The specter of civil war looms over them all; enemies circle ever closer. Clarke and Lexa find themselves caught in a growing web of conspiracy, lies, and betrayal that threatens to destroy the fragile peace they’ve carved out of the post-apocalyptic world—and the old feelings that are starting to resurface.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is the canon story I've been dying to write for almost two years now. This is a fix-it and a dream story altogether; it's what I theorized about before season 3 and what I've wanted ever since, and two years on, it's been so cathartic to write what should have happened, in my eyes. I hope it does the same for you. 
> 
> The story starts in the middle of 3x03 and diverges from there. Right now, I'm anticipating it being upwards of 120k words. Thank you to my two lovely beta readers who gave me some awesome feedback, Sarah and V!

 

* * *

 

 

_I threw myself to the wolves, only to learn of the tenderness in their howl and the loyalty in their blood._

_\--Isra Al-Thibeh_

 

* * *

 

 

She’s _clean._

She really doesn’t want to be. At least, not like this. She’s been longing for a bath for months, but when it comes to the occasion...she’d prefer the forest. It had taken _hours_ before the summit. First, four handmaidens had arrived, carrying an iron tub between them. As they filled it with steaming buckets of water from a spigot in the wall, Clarke had been ordered out of her grime-covered clothes, which were then whisked away—she hasn’t seen them since. She was dunked into the absurdly hot water of the tub, and after she adjusted to the heat, it would have been relaxing if the handmaidens hadn’t proceeded to scrub her raw. She strongly suspects they spoke perfect English, based on the way they looked at each other when she objected, but they pretended not to understand her protests as they removed layers of dirt and filth, brushing so vigorously that her top layer of skin was probably rubbed away as well, leaving her red and shining. Luckily, they were more tender when they slipped her into her new outfit, a gilded and flowing gown of some sort, armored in the corset but open everywhere else, from her chest to a high, wide slit at her thigh. It took two of them to pull her hair back into customary Grounder braids, and finally, they finished by brushing blue and white warpaint across her face.

By the time they left her, alone in her room to wait to be collected when it came time for the summit, Clarke felt like an entirely different person.

Whoever—whatever—she had been in the forest for three months was washed down the drain. And Clarke herself...Clarke was buried beneath this new identity they had cloaked her in.

And she is an entirely different person now, as she walks into the room toward the Commander. She is Wanheda, in all of her glory, cleaned up and decorated like the prize she is, presenting herself to the Commander of the Twelve Clans in an act of submission meant to signify the exchange of power.

The Commander towers above her, towers above the entire throne room, standing alone on the dais. A young woman belts out some sort of Grounder ceremonial anthem and her wailing fills the room all the way up to the vaulted ceiling; all around the walls, ambassadors, dignitaries, elite warriors, and the Commander’s personal guard look on solemnly. The torches around the room cast a rich, golden light on everything and everyone wears their finest furs and armor. This ceremony is unprecedented and the grandeur reflects that. And yet, Clarke looks up at the Commander and feels the way she did when she was sleeping through freezing nights in the depths of the forest.

Numb.

And so it’s the easiest thing in the world to let go of all that she is, sink to one knee, and bow her head. This is Wanheda, submitting to the Commander. Making her all powerful once more. This has nothing to do with Clarke. In acknowledgement of the transfer of power, the rest of the room sinks into bows that echo hers. The singing stops.

“ _Rise_.”

Her voice rings through the room. Clarke stands as the rest of the subjects do. She hears whispers of worried voices hidden among the sound of everyone else rising to their feet, but Clarke keeps her eyes level on the Commander, who stands above them all in a black dress and warpaint more intricate than her usual; she looks more goddess of war than mortal woman. As she begins to speak, silencing the concern among the crowd, Clarke can almost believe that she really did transfer some sort of power to her.

“In the spirit of harmony and strength through unity, the ideals on which the coalition was founded, we welcome Clarke kom Skaikru, and the leaders of the Sky People,” she announces, acknowledging Abby and Kane, somewhere among the crowd. “The reason for this summit has changed. We are not here to negotiate a treaty with Skaikru, but to initiate them into the coalition as the thirteenth clan.”

Those earlier whispers surge forth again, becoming more audible mutters of protest and surprise at her words, but she continues unperturbed; the steel in her voice drowns them out. “To symbolize this union, Wanheda has ceded her power to the coalition, and the leader of the Sky People will now bear our mark.”

Any eye that hadn’t already been on Clarke turns toward her now, but it’s Kane who steps out into the center of the room, rolling up his sleeve as he raises his hand—he is the leader of the Sky People, not Wanheda. He recieves an approving nod, and Clarke is allowed to draw back into the crowd, taking a place beside her mother. Where no one can see, Abby reaches down to grip Clarke’s hand as a red hot iron is lifted from a bed of coals; she squeezes her eyes shut as it is pressed into Kane’s forearm with a venomous hiss, but Clarke doesn’t flinch.

And then it’s lifted away, and Kane is branded, and it’s done. Their people are part of the coalition, safe under the Commander’s protection.

In her act of peaceful surrender, Clarke has laid the mantle of Wanheda on someone else’s shoulders and eliminated the perception of a rivalry between the Commander of the Blood and the Commander of Death. In return, Clarke’s people will be protected by the coalition, pulled into its ranks, given a say in the political decisions, and a place in the economy.

“An act against the Sky People will be an act against this coalition,” the Commander announces at last, and the weight lifts from Clarke’s shoulders. Already, she plans her escape from Polis, her return to freedom. Her mother will hate it, but—

_Bang._

The doors to the throne room swing open so violently that the metal hitting the stone wall sounds like an explosion--three months in the woods have sharpened Clarke’s survival instincts to such a razor sharp edge that she doesn’t even locate the source of the sound before she is diving for her mother and swinging Abby around to put herself between the threat and her mother. All around them, warriors leap in front of their dignitaries and Titus and Indra and half of the room throw themselves in front of their Commander as four black-clad figures rush through the door. There’s a flash of metal and a hoarse shout—

_”Clarke!”_

_Bellamy._

Bellamy storms into the room, looking ragged and war-torn, handgun held high with his other arm wrapped around the neck of a struggling guard; Octavia stands to his right with her sword raised, and another Arker stands to his left with a rifle trained on the nearest Grounder. Standing beside Octavia, a bloodied Ice Nation warrior clutches two knives in her scarred fists. All four stand frozen in the center of the room, waiting for the first attack to come their way.

Clarke goes numb again.

The room explodes with the roars of Grounder fury, but the few that start to leap forward are herded back when the man on Bellamy’s left sweeps his rifle around the room, finger on the trigger. In turn, Bellamy puts his handgun to the temple of the man locked beneath his arm and Clarke’s heart stops because she knows if either of the men pull those triggers, war will break out.

“Bellamy, stop!”

Abby grabs for her but catches only air as Clarke dives into the clear space in the center of the room, hands up. “Don’t shoot! Put the guns down.”

Bellamy’s eyes widen at her appearance but his grip on his gun remains as tight as ever.

“What is the meaning of this?” comes Titus’s roar from behind Clarke; Lexa shoves past her knot of defenders, looking as outraged as the Flamekeeper does.

“The summit’s a trap,” Bellamy says, speaking only to Clarke. He shoves the guard to the floor and knocks him out with a vicious kick to the head, then raises his rifle to prevent any of the grounders from protesting. Then he looks to Clarke again. “Come on, we need to get you out of here.”

“What the hell is this?” Clarke demands, turning to look at Lexa and then back to the group, anyone who can answer.

Lexa grits her teeth. “I don’t know.”

Bellamy, Octavia, and the other man with the gun continue to scan the crowd with wild, shifting eyes. “As soon as the summit ends,” Bellamy explains quickly, “An assassin is going to kill every Sky Person in this tower.”

“How do you know this?”

Bellamy jerks his head over his shoulder at the Ice Nation warrior with them. “Echo. She’s an Ice Nation spy. She was in Mt. Weather with me.”

The Ice Nation ambassador, a man twice Roan’s size and bearing battle scars mingled with is facial ornamental scarring, limps forward with a snarl. “This is an outrage. Ice Nation would never. The Ice Nation didn’t interrupt the summit with weapons drawn—the Skaikru did that!”

“It’s not an Ice Nation assassin, branwada,” Echo spits. She looks to Lexa with narrowed eyes. “Floudonkru.”

Clarke turns, but she never makes it all the way around to see Lexa’s reaction.

“ _Clarke!_ ” Abby screams.

Two hands between her shoulder blades shove Clarke to the ground at the same moment a white hot pain rips through her shoulder and all hell breaks loose.

Clarke hits the floor and tries to scramble to her feet, but bodies are crashing together above her. Clarke manages to dodge a kick aimed at her stomach and a second later, whoever swung at her is tackled out of her view. A grounder stumbles over her and drags her back to the floor with the weight of his fall as the grounders fight tooth and nail, the sickening thud of fists hitting skulls, and bones hitting bones, and bodies hitting concrete, Lexa and Abby’s voice shouting among the many, all drowned out only by the blood rushing in her head.

But the gunfire is louder than any of it.

One, two, three, four, shots rip through the air and echo off the stone walls until it feels like there are too many to count. Somehow, someway, those bullets just started a war, even as they end the fight.

It feels like an eternity until Clarke feels huge hands loop beneath her arms and lift her from the floor; then much smaller hands press into her cheeks and Clarke opens her eyes to her mother’s face, inches away, staring into Clarke with wide, terrified eyes.

“Are you hurt?” Abby pleads.

In response, Clarke’s shoulder pulses in pain—blood flows from a shallow, seeping wound. “Fuck,” she hisses, pressing a hand over it, but it doesn’t seem to be life-threatening. “I’m fine,” she tells Abby, her voice shaking. It doesn’t satisfy her mother, of course, who proceeds to bat Clarke’s hand away and take a closer look at the wound. Clarke looks past her to scan the room.

All around them, Grounders are still climbing to their feet, some held back by their compatriots, but in the center of the room, two of Lexa’s personal guards hold a smaller woman between them, effortlessly hoisting her off the ground as she kicks and struggles against their monolithic strength. Between Clarke and the woman, Lexa stands defiant, facing away from Clarke but her pure rage evident in the taut, coiled muscles of her bare back and the white-knuckles of her curled fists.

“How dare you?” she demands of the woman, voice low and filled with barely contained fury. “How dare you attack—”

“Lexa.” Her name spills from Clarke’s lips quite by accident.

Lexa spins around and in that brief second, visible only to Clarke, all of Lexa’s walls crumble away and Clarke sees the fear flashing in Lexa’s eyes, just long enough for Clarke to give her a reassuring nod—then Lexa ices over again and turns back to the woman, advancing on her.

The Floudonkru assassin stops to meet Lexa’s gaze; that’s when Clarke notices the long, thin knife at her feet and feels her shoulder pulse with pain again. The woman had stood just a few feet away from her throughout the summit and she must have lunged when Clarke’s back was turned. Only Abby shoving Clarke to the floor had prevented the knife from finding a home in Clarke’s spine.

“How dare you attack a guest in my hall at a peace summit?” Lexa repeats.

The assassin doesn’t answer. Lexa’s voice drops lower, a rasp of metal on stone.

“Answer me.”

For the first time all night, the room is completely silent. Then she speaks.

“I would protect the Twelve Clans against the Commander of Death and the people she leads. They will never be part of us.”

“Skaikru is the thirteenth clan,” Lexa snarls. “An attack on them is an attack against your commander—this is an act of war.”

The grounders all around the room shift and whisper at the word; a strange electricity fills the air. _War._ It’s as ominous as the distant pounding of drums signaling an approaching army. Approaching death.

The woman’s lips curl up in a smile. “So be it,” she replies. “Wanheda dies.”

A solitary gunshot shatters the air and the assassin’s head snaps back as her body goes limp in the arms of the guards. They drop her in surprise and the body crumples to the floor.

Jaw falling open, Clarke whips around to find Bellamy still staring down the sight of his gun.

“You—what was that?” she cries. “Why would you shoot her?”

He narrows his eyes at her tone. “She was trying to kill you, Clarke!”

“We could have questioned her!”

“Enough!” Lexa shouts, even as grounder voices all around them rise again, protesting, in fear and anger, that the Sky People have not only brought guns into Polis but have also now killed one of their own, before her aim or affiliation could be clearly determined. Echo, the Ice Nation warrior, swings at a pair of men who advance toward her and Bellamy aims his gun over her shoulder to back them up. _Murderers_ come the accusations, spat in disgust and whispered in fear. She hears words she picked up at trading posts, words that send fear down her spine, words like _war_ and _guns_ and _blood_. The snarls and shouts get louder as the grounders begin to press in closer, surrounding the small group of Sky People.

“Mom, you have to get out of here,” Clarke whispers, reaching down to grasp her mother’s forearm. Bellamy places a protective arm in front of Octavia. Lexa’s personal guards unsheathe their weapons and inch closer toward their Commander, aware of the fight about to break out.

And then comes Lexa’s voice above it all.

“Silence.”

It’s just barely enough to halt them.

“This was an act of war,” she declares, power and rage in her voice cowing them all. “We will get to the bottom of this act and these threats. Guards, arrest the Floudonkru delegation. The rest of the ambassadors will convene for an immediate war council and send riders for their clan leaders. If this was sponsored by the Boat people, Floudonkru will answer for their crimes.”

The chaos rises again but this time it’s facilitated by Lexa’s guards as she turns her back and stalks up the steps to her throne, where she reigns above the chaos. The Floudonkru ambassador and his attendant are thrown in chains, their objections and proclamations of innocence falling on deaf ears; half of the grounders shout them down and the other half voice their yet-unanswered fury at the Sky People and the weapons they still hold aloft. Lexa answers none of it as she sinks onto her throne and watches, glaring, as the Boat Kru representatives are escorted from the room, followed out by some of the other ambassadors. Clarke gives Bellamy a sharp look and he reluctantly lowers his gun, nodding at the others to do the same, but their trigger fingers still in place do not go unnoticed.

Abby seems quite unable to talk or let go of Clarke’s arm, much less leave her side after the attempt on her daughter’s life. Kane takes charge instead, striding toward Lexa’s throne as everyone else moves in the opposite direction.

“Commander,” he presses. “If this was an attack on Skaikru leadership in the tower, we know what the next target will be. Arkadia is vulnerable if we are isolated here.”

Lexa nods judiciously. “Go. Ready your fighters. I’ll send my warriors to help your defense. _Indra_!”

“At once, Commander,” Indra says, stepping forward to Octavia. “I hope you’ve remembered your training.”

Her only response is a smile. Octavia lives for this.

She and Indra head for the door along with the rest of the grounders; Echo, Kane, and the Ark guard, Pike, follow them out. Only Bellamy moves toward Clarke, his voice lowering.

“Come on. We need to leave, now,” he presses. “We need to get home.”

When Clarke hesitates, Lexa’s voice rings out from her throne once more: “We need an ambassador from the Sky People to stay here in Polis.”

Bellamy glares darkly at her. “It’s not safe here.” Each word comes through gritted teeth, and each word is directed at Clarke as much as Lexa.

“Clarke will be safe under my protection,” Lexa fires back.

“She was almost just assassinated!”

In that moment, it’s not Lexa or Bellamy that Clarke turns to: it’s her mother, who already knows what Clarke is going to say. Trying to keep her voice from shaking, Clarke gives her her decision: “I have to stay.”

“Clarke...” she begins, knowing it’s futile.

“I have to make sure she keeps her word.”

Clarke is a leader. And a fighter. As lost and as broken as she may have been for the past three months, and as little sleep as Abby must have gotten in the long nights she spent waiting for Clarke to walk back through the gates alive, and unharmed...Abby can still recognize the memory of Jake in Clarke’s eyes. Clarke is truly his daughter, and she can’t stop Clarke any more than she can stop Jake. All she can do is pull her into one last hug.

It’s too short; it was always going to be. Abby releases her before it gets too painful and steps back—Bellamy steps into the space she vacates, with Echo coming up behind him. He wavers, his self-control just a razor-thin wire drawn so tight that the slightest pressure will snap it, and that will be disastrous now when they need him most to protect Arkadia. Mixed frustration and sadness, rejection and fury, mask his face. Gritting his teeth again, he looks to Clarke, then to Lexa, then back to Clarke with a shake of his head.

“She left us to die in that mountain,” he growls.

“Floudonkru is Trikru’s oldest ally,” Echo adds from beside him. “If they would turn on Lexa, anyone can. You’re not safe here with her, Wanheda.”

“She can’t protect you,” Bellamy tries again. “I can. She will _always_ put her people first...you should come home to yours.”

Clarke just shakes her head. “I’m sorry.” Because she is. But she can’t go back.

Lips curling and tears of anger threatening to spill over, Bellamy flashes Lexa one more glare before he turns on his heel and storms out of the room, followed by Pike and Echo. Octavia, Indra, Kane, and, last, Abby, follow as well.

_May we meet again._

 

*

 

The war council lasts late into the night. The candles gutter low, casting a dim red glow about the room, which only adds to Clarke’s exhaustion. Even the metal ambassador’s chair--the one previously belonging to the Boat Kru ambassador until they can fashion a new one for Clarke—feels comfortable to sleep in. It’s no wonder: a brush with death leaves a heavy emotional weight around her shoulders, whereas it has only fired up the other ambassadors, setting them up to argue for hours.

“We must attack the Boat Kru traitors!” one shouts, to cheers and the drumming of fists on the table.

“War is dangerous when we don’t know the intentions of the assassin or the Floudonkru leader.”

“You only care about your food source, not the integrity of the coalition!”

“And you only care for bloodshed!”

“Because we are a strong people who defend our own!”

And on and on it goes, shouting back and forth across the massive oak table—Lexa sits mostly quiet at the head of the table, taking in all sides without speaking, fingers tented. The low light deepens the lines of concentration in her face and the darkness in her eyes, making her unreadable and dangerous. She only interrupts the proceedings to bark at the ambassadors when they abandon English in favor of their more passionate Trigedasleng to debate, to Clarke’s detriment. Passions run high and it happens every few minutes as they yell and beat their fists on the table. Clarke stays mostly quiet as well, trying to track the alliances and enmities among the ambassadors. Patterns begin to emerge: she picks up who agrees with whom and on what topics, and between which ambassadors the vitriol is strongest. The Ice Nation is hardest to read: they simply promise war against everyone if the threat, whatever it may be, is not contained.

In the end, the council achieves little and Clarke’s attempts to follow the discussions as they dip between English and Trigedesleng and mention old history that she doesn’t understand leave her head pounding. The moon has risen and set by the time that Lexa finally raises a hand and calls for silence.

“We will achieve nothing else tonight. I appreciate the input and engagement from each and every one of you,” she announces. “Retire to your chambers. We will discuss this more throughout the week, and again once your leaders appear before the throne.

“All of them,” she adds, with the hard edge of a threat in her voice, “especially the leaders of Azgeda and Floudonkru.”

Clarke files out with the rest. When she returns to her room, the water from her earlier bath is still lukewarm. Achy and exhausted, and with the wound on her shoulder still throbbing, she is grateful for the small comfort of washing her face with it and removing the warpaint. She grits her teeth against the sharp bite of pain when she raises her arm to unwind the intricate braids, but the feeling of running water through her blonde locks is worth the burn and the clumsiness of pushing through her discomfort. By the time she finishes and changes out of her ceremonial garb, the tower has gone silent once more and her body his heavy with exhaustion.

She breathes in, and breathes out. It feels like the first time in hours she’s tasted oxygen. Breathe. Slowly, steadily.

Finally, she is free. Unfettered completely of an identity. She hasn’t felt like Clarke in a long time, and now that she’s shed the mask of Wanheda, she should be able to sleep easily. She’s no one, so she shouldn’t be haunted by nightmares. But as she climbs into her massive iron-framed bed, the old demon of insomnia returns to her.

She’s not Clarke. She’s not Wanheda. She’s not the leader of her people. She’s an ambassador of a people she no longer knows to a culture she doesn’t understand.

She’s a murderer.

She’s an assassin.

Well. A would-be assassin. Just like the Boat Kru woman tonight.

That’s an interesting thought. The knife that Clarke had nearly used to kill Lexa had been smuggled into a tower supposedly free of weapons—only Lexa’s personal guard is allowed to carry a blade. But the assassin who tried to kill her also carried a knife into the same tower. One knife meant to kill the Commander, one knife meant to kill Wanheda, just a few hours apart. Two failed assassinations.

Clarke sits upright in bed.

 

*

 

The throne room already seemed large when it was filled with people—it seems cavernous now that it’s empty. Clarke stands in the same spot she had knelt earlier this evening, staring up at the throne, trying and failing to organize her thoughts into some conceivable pattern that will shed light onto the mystery in front of her.

She looks down at the bloodstain that marks the place where the assassin had died. The woman would have had answers for her—eventually. But with that solution removed thanks to Bellamy, Clarke tries to find the answers herself, but every idea she comes up with simply begets three more questions, leading her into a mazy train of thought that drags her deeper and deeper.

She’s so intent on the problems in front of her that she doesn’t hear the door to the throne room open and close. Only Lexa’s voice, a few seconds later, pulls Clarke out of her trance.

“What are you doing here, Clarke?” Lexa asks softly.

Clarke turns to see her approaching. Like Clarke, Lexa has also shed her warpaint and braids, and with it, that semi-mythic Commander aura. She looks younger than she had at the summit. More like her twenty-one years, and more like a young woman than a goddess of war and wrath.

Clarke, however, has no spare thought for Lexa’s transformation. She turns back to the bloodstain on the floor. “Couldn’t sleep,” she mutters.

“Neither can I,” Lexa says, like an offering, a similarity they might share. An offering Clarke doesn’t take.

“I don’t understand,” she says. “She was in the room the entire time. Why would she wait until after we became a part of the coalition? What was it you said? An act against one is an act against all.”

Lexa inclines her head in acknowledgement of her own words, but there’s a softness in her eyes that suggests she’s relieved Clarke isn’t throwing them back in her face with vitriol. “I believe the assassin took whatever chance she had. They all know well that regardless of the summit or Skaikru’s standing in our coalition, any act against you within my halls would have been taken as an act against me and my command. The consequence would have been the same. L—the leader of the Boat People will answer for this within a week.”

Clarke doesn’t have it in her to question the complexities of grounder politics, so she accepts that answer for what it is. She just wants to calm her mind enough to sleep. She turns to Lexa fully, as if the girl can give her the answers.

Lexa reads her silence. “I do not know what will come of all of this, Clarke, but I can promise you, you are safe here.”

“I know,” Clarke says.

It’s the one thing she’s sure of, and she doesn’t know why. But her life is protected within these walls.

“Questions remain,” Lexa continues, “Questions I will ask of both the Ice Nation and the Boat People about the attack; why, and how Echo knew, and where to go from here. We’ll get the answers soon, Clarke.”

“We better.”

The two young women stand facing each other at the base of the steps to Lexa’s throne, and with a small jolt Clarke realizes that the last time they were alone together, she had a knife against Lexa’s throat and tears stinging her eyes. Her hand shook so bad that even if she had wanted to, she couldn’t have broken skin. This is a realization that brings exhaustion crashing down upon her; the knife this afternoon feels like a lifetime ago. She still looks at Lexa and feels a flood of mingled hopelessness and rejection and the ever-present burn of betrayal, but being so close to Lexa this afternoon and awoken something else in her...something deeper and full of sorrow, something she hadn’t felt for the entirety of her stay in the woods. And it’s driving her dangerously close to contrition.

In that moment, she recognizes the same emotion on Lexa’s face—it’s a flash, but she recognizes it because she knows it so well. Lexa draws closer to her, and Clarke doesn’t flinch away.

“Thank you...” Lexa’s voice wavers dangerously. “...for staying.”

Clarke tightens her jaw. She will not bow this time. She will not give in to whatever tendrils of remorse and emotion curl around her. “I stayed because it was the right thing for my people,” she says, stone-faced.

“Our people.”

Our.

Clarke clings to the last of her resolve, hating herself as if she’s stubbornly gripping broken glass. “If you betray me again...” she tries.

Lexa interrupts with two clear words: “I won’t.”

The firelight reflecting in Lexa’s gray-green eyes feels independent of the torches that line the walls: Lexa burns for her, she burns with the desire to promise all of that and more to Clarke. Lexa steps forward once more and sinks to one knee, and then two. Clarke’s breath stops in her chest as Lexa goes beyond a bow and kneels before Clarke in true supplication, looking up to her, reverently, hopefully, devoutly.

“I swear fealty to you, Clarke kom Skaikru,” Lexa says, slow enough to pour her meaning and intention into every word she pulls out of her chest. “I vow to treat your needs as my own and your people as my people.”

This is not the Commander; it’s Lexa. She’s not bowing; she’s kneeling. She’s laying her life at Clarke’s feet, at once begging for forgiveness and promising steadfast devotion and honor for as long as she lives. Emotions that Clarke cannot name surge up in her chest with force that threatens to knock her back, drowning whatever is left of her anger and bitterness. Lexa. Lexa is the reason Clarke feels safe in the tower. Lexa, kneeling in front of her, promising her, swearing her life to Clarke, is the reason Clarke will finally sleep tonight. She still carries her demons with her, but the way Lexa looks up at her...feels like healing.

All she can do is extend an open palm; Lexa’s eyes widen in disbelief. After a moment, she slips her hand into Clarke’s and stands so that they can meet eye-to-eye. And Clarke...Clarke keeps Lexa’s hand in hers for longer than necessary.

Lexa escorts Clarke to her room, silence between them. She sleeps a blissful, dreamless sleep that night. For the first time since Lexa turned her back at the Mountain.

 

*

 

It’s been nine days since Roan captured Clarke and hauled her, spitting and screaming, to stand before the Commander of the Twelve Clans, only for Clarke to spit and scream at her. Clarke spent the first seven of those days a prisoner in the Commander’s Tower, aching for escape. She thought the summit would change things, but Lexa refuses her request to explore the streets.

“Until the clan leaders have arrived and we can neutralize whatever threat you face, the streets aren’t safe,” Lexa tells her on the first day.

“So much for your unquestioned control,” Clarke snaps.

Lexa just looks pained, and a small part of Clarke regrets the acid in her voice, but Lexa is the one standing between her and freedom—and she will not forgive Lexa for the mountain, either.

Telling Lexa about Roan’s proposal before the summit--assassinate Lexa and earn an alliance with the Ice Nation--makes matters worse. Clarke doesn’t even get to the point where she had considered the offer, let alone the point where she had held a knife to Lexa’s throat. Upon hearing Roan’s words repeated, Lexa storms from the room and orders Roan and the entire Ice Nation delegation arrested for conspiracy. A few hours later, Clarke has two Trikru guards at her door, replacing the Polis guard she had had before. Guards who have known Lexa since she was a child, they tell her.

Clarke had assumed that removing threats from the board would help her case for freedom, but instead, she just tightened security, reducing her chances for escape to less than zero. She sees even less of Lexa in the following two days, so she has no chance of bargaining, either.

So she is left to simmer in her own isolation, just as she did before the summit.

Clarke has every luxury in the tower, and every luxury, she refuses. The handmaidens offer bathing and pampering at her leisure, which she ignores; they make themselves scarce otherwise. Three times per day, meals of fruit and meat and bread are delivered to her door. In protest, she eats as little as possible, only bits of calorically dense meat that will keep her alive. One of the mornings, a pile of parchment and charcoal sticks had appeared alongside the tray of breakfast—Clarke leaves that untouched as well. Likewise, she ignores the pile of clothes given to her by a guard and wears the same outfit each day. She will not be bought by gifts.

Instead, she spends her hours out on the balcony, staring down at the marketplace below, trying to imagine herself within it. She can close her eyes and hear the cries of children playing, the shouts of vendors selling fish and fruit and scrap, the clatter of wagon wheels and hoofbeats on the stone streets. The world she inhabits now and the world she looks down on are two entirely different existences, occupying almost the same space.

Not unlike the existence she lived on the Ark: staring down from her cell in the Skybox, looking down at Earth from hundreds of miles above the earth, knowing that the world below her teemed with life and strange tastes and smells and dangers--but being unable to reach it.

The irony is not lost on her.

Worst of all is the sense of danger lurking over the horizon: three months of surviving in the wild tends to hammer in an instinct of paranoia that clashes with the safety and luxury of Lexa’s tower. She’s faced assassination attempts, kidnappings, death threats, promises of war, all things that she should not be idly accepting while she waits in a locked room at the top of a tower. All through the day, she can hear ambassadors coming and going from the war room, meeting with Lexa privately, bringing news and cutting deals. Sometimes, the shouting carries into Clarke’s room, and the only thing she can make sense of is that all is not well outside of Polis. She paces her room and strains to hear bits of news and information, but it’s never enough.

Finally, late afternoon on the second day, it’s too much. She snaps.

Jaw locked and brow set, Clarke strides into the hallway with such force that her door bangs off of the wall. She ignores all commands to halt from the guards at her room on her way to Lexa’s throne room—a closed door means she’s in a meeting of some sort, as she always seems to be, and Clarke is going to interrupt it. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the guards that stand at Lexa’s door reach for her, but then hesitate—-it gives her the chance she needs to push open the doors and into the room.

“Commander,” she declares loudly, as a way of announcing herself.

“Wanheda,” comes Lexa’s even reply. “Is everything all right?”

“I’d like to sit in on this meeting, for once--”

She stops short, blinking rapidly at the sight before her, as if her vision is off. Those can’t be—kids? Twelve little faces, smooth and doe-eyed, turn towards the door at the sound of her arrival, but after her initial shock, Clarke ignores them, instead fixing her gaze on the thirteenth: Lexa. She sits on her throne in the center of the semicircle of children, relaxed, elbows on her knees and the bow of her lips bent in the closest thing to a smile that Clarke has seen on her face since she arrived in Polis. She’s abandoned her usual armor in favor of  worn, casual breeches and a leather shirt. She hardly looks the steel-edged girl Clarke has come to know, and she’s not sure if that’s because of her appearance or the children around her.

All in all, it’s a bizarre sight, and it takes Clarke a moment to recover.

“Wanheda?” Lexa’s voice breaks the silence. Perfectly even. As if weekly storytime with children is a completely normal activity for the embattled warlord of post-apocalyptic America. Lexa glances at the kids, then back to Clarke. “It’s more of a lesson, but I’m sure the children wouldn’t mind your joining them.”

Her lips twitch in the hint of a smile.

Before Clarke can respond, a booming voice sounds from behind the throne: “Wanheda?” Titus storms forward from the shadows, thundering towards Clarke. “You would have the audacity to interrupt the Nightblood’s training, seeking an audience with the Commander?”

“Calm, Titus,” Lexa calls, stopping him in his tracks. “She had no way of knowing.”

“If she must stay in the tower,” he mutters as he turns back toward Lexa, “she should be aware of the laws.”

“As the creator and enforcer of said laws, I determine when they are applied. Let this be a lesson for the Nightbloods.” The picture of composure against Titus’s ready-to-burst rage, Lexa looks to the kids. “Someone tell me. How should a Heda react to a situation like this, when a guest makes the mistake Titus has accused Wanheda of?”

A young boy raises his hand. “With forgiveness, Heda.”

“Why is that?”

“Because a Heda should show wisdom, compassion, and strength.”

Lexa smiles softly. “There you have it, Titus. Neither the Nightbloods nor I will indict Wanheda for not knowing the schedule of a place she has never lived.” Titus begins to argue, but Lexa’s cool tone drops an octave: “Enough.”

In truculent silence, Titus stalks back to his position just behind the throne. Lexa doesn’t spare him a sideways glance, but Clarke watches him all the way, uncertain, until Lexa prompts her, far more softly. “Is something wrong, Wanheda?”

Clarke raises her chin and her voice, trying to match Lexa. “I’d like to discuss some problems with you, Commander,” she says, with her best attempt at nobility.

Lexa wrinkles her brow slightly, but nods. Surprised by her acquiescence, Clarke tries to fight the rising blush in her cheeks as she searches for something else to say, pointedly ignoring the children still staring at her. Lexa seems to pick up on her hesitation.

“These are the Nightbloods,” Lexa tells her, gesturing at the children around her. “After their training—”

“Nightbloods?”

“My novitiates. They’re in training to take up command when I’m gone.”

Of course. A succession plan. None of the kids looks older than twelve, but then again, when Clarke really looks at Lexa, she looks no older than twenty—and Clarke knows she’s been in power for several years now. She can hardly imagine sixteen year old Lexa, unblemished, unscarred, leading an army into battle, coming back spattered in blood, shaking and exhausted and having been witness to things far beyond her years. Clarke can see it now, looking in Lexa’s eyes: a wisdom and sadness in the deep gray-green.

A succession plan, for when Lexa is gone. Dead. The only way that she could see it so blankly is if her soul had already been pulled apart long ago.

Clarke knows that feeling. Surrounded by so much death it feels like an old friend.

The thought sobers her, pours cold water on the smoldering ashes of her anger. “I shouldn’t have interrupted,” she says, backing towards the door. The words of a true apology still stick in her throat but she hopes they pick up on her remorse. “When this is over—”

“We’re almost finished,” Lexa tells her. “I’d be happy to speak with you about whatever concerns you have in just a moment.”

Clarke nods, with forced formality, as she leaves the room.

Waiting in the hall outside Lexa’s throne room, Clarke takes the quiet moment to collect her thoughts: it’s then that it strikes her just how strange these conversations with Lexa are. They’re stilted. Uncertain. Conscious of the absurdity of speaking in such gilded, chivalrous language while all that they’ve done to one another hangs over them like storm clouds darkening the skies. Betrayals, death, knives to throats, assassins, the world on the brink of war...and they’re talking court. This doesn’t even feel real.

As promised, Lexa doesn’t take long; the door opens and the Nightblood children come spilling out before Clarke has the opportunity to reconcile her spiraling thoughts and focus on what brought her to the throne room in the first place. Titus herds them down the hall. He ignores Clarke’s presence at the door, leaving her standing there, hesitant, but when Lexa’s personal guards don’t pull the door closed, she takes that as permission to enter.

Lexa stands to the side of the room, pulling on her shoulder armor and blood-red sash. She turns to Clarke with all the stately attitude of the Commander of the Twelve, but contrasted against the calm and easy nature of her interaction with the children just minutes before, something about the Commander rings false now, like it’s a power that blinks in and out of existence when Lexa so chooses.

“Is everything all right, Clarke?” Lexa asks, moving towards her. She’s quiet in the cavernous room.

Clarke casts around for the right words. “I just...I can’t keep sitting here, day after day.”

“You feel trapped,” she surmises.

“I feel useless.”

“You’re not.”

Clarke blinks at the sudden force in Lexa’s voice, but she shakes her head. “Unless you consider drawing pictures and eating fruit to be useful, I’m accomplishing nothing locked up in this tower. I thought when I joined the coalition—”

Lexa’s cheeks turn red. “You didn’t like the charcoal?”

“I—my point is that I thought the reason I joined the coalition was to end the threat, to ensure that Wanheda had no more power, to protect my people. I thought I’d be safe once it was over. So why am I still here?”

“Because the threat of war hangs over us like smoke from a battlefield, Clarke,” Lexa says, pressing forward, intent on making Clarke understand. “Because one false move from Nia or one mistake from another clan leader, one intrusion on another’s territory and they’re at each other’s throats. The power of Wanheda has been transferred over to me, that much is true, but Clarke, you have to understand how much power you still have, how strongly you can affect things. The Sky People are an unprecedented force with none of our history and I need you on my side. I need you alive. I can’t risk your—”

She stops, realizing only in the pause how strong her voice had been getting; she recovers herself. “We need to see the coalition through this. Once the clan leaders arrive and we establish who attempted to kill you and prevent the Sky People from entering the coalition, I’ll be able to ensure peace. Then you’re free to go.”

It’s what she’s said since the beginning, in the promises, the apologies, the offhand comments, the tray of delicacies sent to Clarke’s room three times a day. But the idea of freedom seems so far away—it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

“You know who tried to kill me. Everyone knows.”

Lexa purses her lips. “We don’t know anything yet,” she says. “We’ll find out the truth from her when she arrives.”

“When _who_ arrives?”

“The leader of the Boat People.”

More court. More politics. With a frustrated sigh, Clarke spins away, stalking across the throne room toward the open window, like the fresh air will do something to calm her. Lexa gives her the moment to herself, then clears her throat.

“I understand your impatience, Clarke,” she says quietly. “I’ll arrange for the guards to show you more of the tower. And for now...I have a meeting with the ambassadors of the Rockline and Lake People clans. Would you like to attend?”

Suddenly, politics don’t seem all that bad.

 

*

 

Lexa’s war room is far smaller and more intimate than the throne room, with a massive concrete table and thirteen chairs taking up most of the open space. A fluttering curtain hangs over the broken plate glass window, darkening the room and closing the space even further. When Clarke and Lexa enter, the two men standing at this window turn and bow deeply, and their attendants--armored guards--do the same.

“Commander,” one says, in reverent greeting.

“And Wanheda,” finishes the other. “We weren’t expecting you.”

“Ambassadors.” Lexa nods; they relax, and take their seats at the table, Lexa at the head, Clarke at her right, and the two ambassadors on the opposite side.

“I invited Wanheda to attend this meeting, with hope she would provide more clarity on Skaikru’s position than I could. Clarke, this is Boone, of the Rockline Clan, to the southwest of Polis,” Lexa tells her, indicating the slim, older man in a flowing gray robe and a long beard. “And this is Ashe, of the Lake people, of the great lakes to the northwest.”  

Ashe is taller and thicker than Boone, grizzled like an oak tree and armored even better; he ignores Clarke, while Boone gives her a polite nod.

Clarke responds in kind, staying silent, but her attention shifts to the attendant standing behind Ashe. She’s a young woman, slim and muscled, wearing armor to match her superior; when she catches Clarke staring, she gives her a hard glare, and Clarke quickly looks away.

If Clarke had any hope of answers or intrigue, it seems she is to be let down. The meeting proceeds much the same way the summit meeting had: she begins with her heart pounding, waiting to unravel this latest mystery, and as the ambassadors drone on about their personal needs and grievances, she loses interest.

In this case, Boone is upset because he feels that Ashe and the Lake People have not met the agreed upon quota of fish that they trade each month with the Rockline Clan; Ashe responds that caravans have been set upon by Ice Nation rogues for weeks, and that’s the reason the the shipments have been lighter than usual.

“Your people see Ice Nation warriors in your sleep,” Boone retorts. “If anything goes bad, it’s always because of the Ice Nation.”

Ashe huffs. “Convenient for you to assume, being from the south. You’re surrounded by Trishanakru and Trikru, hardly bloodthirsty enemies. You don’t live life under constant threat of a neighboring clan attacking you; you aren’t hardened, like our warriors are.”

“A Rockline Warrior is as good as any,” Boone says proudly, lifting his chin.

“At slaughtering goats, perhaps.”

“Ambassadors,” Lexa warns before Boone can fire back.

Back and forth they go, Lexa arbitrating when needed. Clarke loses interest in the conversation and turns to watching Lexa instead, watches the way her jaw shifts back and forth when the ambassadors get testy, watches the way her eyes narrow before she offers a solution. Clarke finds herself trying to beat Lexa to it: where there is a problem, she watches Lexa work it out in her head and tries to come up with a solution first, but the Commander is always a step ahead of her.

She mostly tunes out of what Boone and Ashe are saying; it’s a long time before she hears words that pique her interest.

“So, when the time comes, Skaikru could contribute towards the protection of trade and safe passage between the clans?” Ashe asks.

Clarke turns to him suddenly. “What?”

“This is why I invited you, Wanheda,” Lexa tells her. “I figured you’d like to discuss the Sky People’s place in the coalition.”

“We’d like certain assurances,” Ashe adds.

“Most notably,” Boone interjects, “That Skaikru will not break the alliance because of the actions of the Boatkru assassin on the evening of the summit.”

Clarke’s answer is automatic: “We won’t. Skaikru will demand justice and answers, but the coalition protects all. We want to survive.”

“As I have assured you,”  Lexa adds firmly. “The actions of individuals will not be held as the actions of a group, unless and until a connection is found between the leaders and the assassin. Which is why the Boat Kru leader has been called to the capital, along with the others this time.”

“And if she doesn’t appear?” Ashe asks.

“Then it will be taken as an act of treason, and we will forcibly bring her to Polis.”

“Oh, so _that’s_ treason,” he grunts.

Lexa considers him for a moment, then points to the warrior woman standing behind him. “Ambassador, if Vela here suddenly lunged across attacked me, of her own free will and without warning or indication from you, would you object if I systematically destroyed the Lake People?”

Vela the attendant bristles at Lexa’s suggestion, but Ashe waves her off. “You could try,” he drawls. But Lexa’s point lands.

“I will not start wars without knowing why I’m starting them, and with whom.”

He longs to reply with equal force, blood for blood, it’s all over his face. Clarke knows the type by now: a former warrior, forced by age or injury into a stuffy political job, all the while longing for battle. As it stands, Ashe has to satiate himself with gritting his teeth and glaring at the Commander. Sensing the tension, Boone sits forward instead, addressing Clarke more politely.

“Wanheda, once we determine that the Boatkru assassin acted alone and peace resumes, what will Skaikru provide the coalition? Do you trade?” Boone asks her.

This stymies Clarke; it’s not something she ever actually considered. How could she? She’s been fighting for her life since she’d landed. The thoughts of an economy weren’t exactly at the forefront of her mind. “I—we have knowledge,” she offers, and barely manages to avoid wincing at how weak that sounds. “Engineering. Construction. Medical techniques, science. The Commander and I built an alliance on Skaikru’s ability to heal Reapers—”

“And did you?” Ashe interjects. “My son was taken by the Mountain Men and became a Reaper. He has not been returned to me.”

Taken aback, Clarke looks to Lexa for her support. “As far as we know,” Lexa says quietly, “The Sky People did not heal any of the Reapers following the fall of the mountain.”

“They didn’t?” Clarke demands, in disbelief. Of course they did. She and her mother determined the cause and the treatment, it would have been simple to treat the Reapers, especially if they were weakened.

“We have been finding bodies in the forests for weeks.”

She says it as gently as she can in her capacity as commander—Clarke still feels like she’s been hit in the chest. Her people, her mother, let all of those grounders die. After everything Lexa did, Clarke bowed before her in order to save and protect her people, only to find out that they callously let hundreds of grounders die. She doesn’t believe it—there has to be another reason. With no war, they would have excess medical supplies; the Sky People must be rehabilitating some within the walls of Arkadia.

“I’m sure my people—”

“Alliances broken on all sides,” Ashe says, acid in his words as he looks at Clarke—and Lexa. Skaikru’s agreement to heal the Reapers might not be well known, but Lexa’s betrayal at the mountain is. Clarke gets a sick satisfaction from that.

“Watch your tongue,” Lexa warns.

He obeys, but with a dark glare at the Commander. Ashe is clearly military—the fact that he insists upon wearing armor to a diplomacy meeting in a weapons-free city suggests that he’s itching for conflict or challenge, neither of which Lexa provides. Boone, the Rockline Ambassador, is more reserved but nonetheless looks just as dubious as his counterpart, staring between Ashe, Lexa, and Clarke. Clarke suddenly realizes how supremely fragile the situation is. Lexa asked her to attend this meeting in order to reassure the ambassadors of Skaikru’s value to the coalition, that their inclusion is worth the current political instability it has caused. She doesn’t know what deals Lexa was cutting before she came to Polis, before the Sky People were part of the coalition, but Clarke knows that bringing up the previous failed alliances was not the best way to close them, not while Lexa is supposedly trying to protect her people.

Clarke backs down just as the ambassadors did, dipping her head, a signal that Lexa understands. She resumes control and takes the opportunity to close the conversation.

“We will not discuss decisions made in the past, before Skaikru was inducted into the coalition. A coalition would not even be possible if every clan was beholden to actions made before its formation.”

 _Convenient position,_ Clarke wants to snipe. But she holds back. Not now.

“The Skaikru Ambassador has assured you of her clan’s benefit to your clans as well as the wider coalition,” Lexa continues. “Once we settle the current issues, the leaders and ambassadors will be able to see their contributions for themselves. Now, if there is nothing else, I have other matters to attend to.”

Effectively dismissed, both of the ambassadors know better than to continue their arguments, so they slink out of the room in silence. Clarke watches them go, her attention drawn to Vela—the girl walks with a heavy limp. Based on that, Clarke would guess that the armor is mostly decorative, not made for battle, but Clarke knows Raven and how lethal she can be, so she can only imagine how powerful Vela must be to have risen to the level of political guard. Looks can be deceiving. She thinks again of the Polis marketplace in the street at the base of the tower, and how there is so much about this culture she doesn’t know. She’s on the fringes of it, in the dark, catching glimpses here and there but only when it directly affects her. Otherwise...she’s locked in her tower.

Lexa remains perfectly still, watching Clarke instead of the door, until the boom of the doors closing behind the ambassadors permits them to speak freely. She steels herself first, shuffling her feet and reclapsing her hands behind her back, but even though it’s just the two of them, she looks no less relaxed than she did with the ambassadors. This is a far cry from the last time Clarke was alone with her, when Lexa pulled down her own walls and knelt before Clarke in vulnerability and supplication. But that moment remains between the two of them, in the night lit dimly by low-burning orange candles, and this isn’t that. Lexa is guarded now, and Clarke is sour after the ambassadors opened old wounds; even though they stand the same distance apart as they had the other night, the gulf between them is miles wide.

“Is there anything else you’d like to discuss, Clarke?” Lexa asks carefully.

For some reason, she finds herself searching. After a catalog of her thoughts, she finds something she hasn’t had the opportunity to ask yet. “The night of the summit...how did Bellamy and the others get into Polis with guns?”

“From what I’ve been told...” she hesitates. “They used the tunnels, beneath the city.”

“I’d like to see them,” Clarke says instantly.

“The tunnels are well guarded, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Then there shouldn’t be any reason I can’t see them.

After a pause, Lexa concedes that point. “Fair enough. Titus, a pair of guards, or myself could escort you.” Another pause. For a fraction of a second, Clarke sees a flicker of the girl who knelt before her. “It’s your decision.”

“After what Roan said about your guards?” Clarke replies. She snorts. “And Titus refuses to have anything to do with me, so...”

“I’d be happy to show you, then,” Lexa says quickly. Clarke doesn’t see much of a choice otherwise. She shrugs and gives Lexa a nod, causing a flash of hopefulness in the Commander’s eyes before she recovers herself. “All right. I have a few more meetings to attend to first, but I will make sure they don’t take longer than necessary. You are welcome to stay—”

 _Not a chance._ Hell, Clarke is backing out of the room even as Lexa extends the invitation. Heat rises in her throat: she can’t continue to stand here and hash out the same conversation, review the same broken promises, admit her guilt in so many deaths, with a succession of other clan ambassadors, not when the mixed emotions already threaten to suffocate her each time she sees Lexa’s face. Her winter in the forest was so much easier—nothing but cold inside and out.

She tries to recall that feeling now, as she heads for the door; the iciness in her chest comes out in her voice. “You handle your coalition. I’ll be in my room.”

From the look on her face, everything in Lexa wants to call her back, but the Commander resists.

 

*

 

Clarke’s quarters—a sitting area, an alcove with a bed, and a small washroom with a tub and a basin on a pedestal—measure twenty-three steps from alcove to washroom, and fourteen from door to balcony. She knows the count of the steps like the back of her hand after the last nine days of being here, but that afternoon as she waits for Lexa to finish her meetings, she loses count of the number of times she paces from wall to wall, trying to shake the restless burning energy from her legs. She can’t sleep, she can’t relax. The stack of parchment and sticks of charcoal sit waiting on a table, but Clarke can’t even imagine a version of this earth where she feels in the right frame of mind to draw again. So she paces, wondering if her fast-fading desire to see the tunnels beneath the city is worth the time spent at Lexa’s side.

She hasn’t fully made up her mind by the time the sun sinks low on the horizon and she hears a soft knock at her door, but the time for doubting her choice has passed. Steeling herself, she swings the door open. “I—”

Boone, the Rockline Ambassador, stands in the hallway. Alone, but for the two guards who stand at her door.

“Wanheda,” he greets, with a respectful bow. “After our conversation about the contributions of Skaikru, I was hoping to learn more about your people. May I enter?”

He casts a careful glance at the sentinels flanking the door, then down the hall in the direction of Lexa’s throne room. Clarke looks to her guards for an answer as well, but they may as well be statues, confirming her thought that this man clearly is no threat. He’s one of the oldest ambassadors, he’s soft-spoken, he doesn’t have his attendant with him, and his hands are clasped in front of him in a show of complacency and respect.

“Come in,” Clarke says, standing aside.

And even if she’s wrong, she still has the knife she nearly used to kill Lexa stashed under her pillow. She sleeps better with it there.

“My people present no threat,” Clarke says, accompanying him to the couches. He doesn’t take the seat she offers—he stands tall, face to face with her, and suddenly this isn’t as casual as it seems. “We’ve been forced to fight, forced to kill, but we all want peace and safety. So, what would you like to know?”

“It is always good to desire peace,” he says. “But it is foolish to desire peace without having the strength to support it. The Commander knows this. Skaikru has strength. Your people are feared.”

“Why?” Clarke asks. “We’re outnumbered, we—”

“Why not? They are led by the warrior who brought the mountain to its knees.”

Clarke forces herself to swallow against the bitter lump in her throat; Boone inclines his head, showing that he meant it respectfully before he continues speaking.

“You offer technology and knowledge to the coalition. But if the coalition were to splinter, you must offer your strength...to the right side. When the war comes, Skaikru’s strength will be sought after—”

She interrupts him. “ _If_. If it comes.”

“When, Wanheda. An act of war from Floudonkru against a member of the coalition will tear it apart and we will have war. It’s only a matter of time.”

And again, the war stabs fear into her, deep down in her abdomen: war against the grounders, war against the mountain, none of that carries with it the dark weight that a civil war within the coalition carries. She thinks of the marketplace in Polis filled with soldiers slipping on cobblestones slick with blood, she thinks of warriors bent double as they race through the tunnels, she thinks of walls falling and fire catching and empires collapsing. And all of it revolts her: “It wasn’t an act of war!” she cries, as if her certainty will make it so. “The assassin acted alone. And even if she didn’t, is it really war if it’s twelve clans against one?”

Boone just chuckles, shaking his head. “It will never be twelve clans against one. You have much to learn, Wanheda. Clan ties and alliances run deep, existing for far longer than you or Heda have been on this earth.” When Clarke shakes her head, he steps forward into her face and puts force behind his previously smooth words. “Trikru will side with the Commander. They are strong. Ice Nation will oppose Trikru, because of the blood feuds. But Floudonkru? They control trade. Clans depend on food Floudonkru provides in exchange for wood or cloth or weapons or fuel. Which clans will side with the strength of Trikru, which will side with Azgeda, and which will side with food for their children?”

Clarke doesn’t have an answer to that. He doesn’t need one.

“When the war comes, I would like to be the first to offer Skaikru protection. Rockline warriors are strong and hardy; we were raised in the mountains of the south and our number is only slightly less than that of Trikru. Your people and mine will be safe, as long as you pledge loyalty to Rockline, regardless of whether they support or oppose the Commander. Our clans will support one another.”

Suddenly, it’s as if their voices are too loud, as if the guards will burst into the room at the hint of a conspiracy; Clarke has to take a moment before she can reply, processing what he said, because the words on her tongue feel as if they will put into motion something she can’t undo if she speaks them. She does anyway.

“You want me to betray--the Commander to save my people?” she breathes.

He shakes his head slowly, but the light in his eyes confirms it. “There may be no betrayal necessary. But with Rockline and Skaikru fighting on the same side, the side we choose will be the side that wins. The side that survives. I’m not asking you to betray the Commander. I am asking you to commit to protecting your people when the time comes by allying your people with mine. Fight for the side that will survive, and help lead the survivors into a new age of peace.”

 _Honor_ is not a word that survived the apocalypse, apparently. She has discovered this each day since landing on earth, but even after knowing the ground, up until the moment Lexa walked away from her, Clarke would have never agreed to this deal—but Lexa, the most noble of them all, took that and so much more that night at the mountain. She showed her the truth: honor is useless if you and your people are dead.

But maybe it is something they can regain and rebuild, once the wars are over. Honor is a peacetime virtue. But only if they survive.

Clarke smoothes her face into a mask that gives nothing away, then does the same with her voice: “When the war comes, I hope my people can find a friend in Rockline. Yours will be the first clan I think to turn to.”

Boone stares at her suspiciously--it’s not an exact answer and they both know it--but Clarke offers him only a polite gesture toward the door and he relents. He’ll take what he can get. He bows again before he leaves, one last attempt at her favor, and this time, Clarke gives him the slightest of nods, eyes dark as they flick down the hallway toward Lexa’s room.

For her people. Always.

She tore down the mountain to save them. Her mother, her friends, the people who had saved her life and made it worth living, the way she remembered them before the mountain and before her three months in self-imposed exile. Raven with all of her unyielding strength and courage, Octavia with her boldness and compassion, Bellamy with his loyalty, Monty with his smile, the delinquents who trusted her, her mother...her mother. The memory of her father, who would have done anything to save his people, up to the moment he died for it. It had been his strength that had allowed her to pull the lever to save them--she is her father’s daughter, after all. She would save them as he tried to, she would die for them if need be; and hopefully, she’ll be able to bring peace and safety to them.

Standing between her two monstrous guards in her doorway, Clarke watches Boone retreat down the hall; her eyes glued to him until he descends the staircase to the lower levels and disappears out of sight. As soon as the steps stop echoing off the stone walls, her attention then slides in the opposite direction, toward Lexa’s throne room once more. She can’t imagine who Lexa is meeting with; someone pitching an alliance for the coming war, to be sure, just as Boone had. She wonders if the ambassador in the throne room does not hold Skaikru in the same regard as Boone--she wonders if they are trying to convince Lexa to stabilize her coalition by removing Clarke’s people from it.

With that thought, Clarke decides against walking the length of the hall to tell Lexa about Boone’s offer.

She’ll keep her cards close to her chest. Her people’s survival is all that matters now. Lexa, of all people, will understand that.

When she steps back in her room, she has her hand on the door to push it closed when a new idea flashes through her head. “Hey,” she says to one of the guards, gaining his attention. She takes a deep breath. “When the Commander comes to my door, inform her I am no longer interested in the plans I had with her.”

“Yes, Wanheda.”

It works. If Lexa does come to the door that night, she never knocks. Clarke wastes the night away in silence, her mind far away.

  
*

 

The next day dawns cold and clear, and Clarke wakes with hope. It’s been three days since the summit. The leaders of the nearest clans will be arriving this afternoon, which will inch them closer to a resolution that will free Clarke from the tower. Until then, though, Clarke waits in her room, eating fruit from her breakfast platter in the order of the colors of the rainbow: strawberries, melon, pineapple, grapes, blueberries. She’s not sure where Lexa brings this fruit in from, but one day when the danger has passed, she hopes to see the fields.

Gone is last night’s anxious energy that left her pacing the room. Something has finally settled—maybe it’s just come with the inevitable passage of time—but Clarke can sit back on one of the worn couches in her room and run an appraising eye over the stack of parchment and charcoal sticks on her table. They were a gift; she might as well use them. She has no inspiration, but maybe if she just started scribbling…

The idea vanishes along with her isolation when she hears a knock at the door. Before she can react, it opens and a small blonde head pokes in, with the unceremonious curiosity of a child. Clarke furrows her brow before she realizes that it’s one of Lexa’s Nightbloods.

“Wan—Clarke?”

She blinks at the use of her name. “You can come in,” she invites, his softness begetting hers.

The boy edges into the room, only just inside the doorway. “I have more lessons with Titus that I have to return to soon,” he explains. “I’m Aden, Heda’s lead novitiate.”

Aden introduces himself so earnestly, drawn up to his full height of a little over five feet, chest puffed out in his leather armor—he wears a flash of Commander Red at his shoulder—that Clarke has to play along. She matches his solemnity and acts impressed, offering her hand out in greeting. “I’m Clarke. It’s nice to meet you.”

“I know. Heda has told us about you.”

“She has?”

He nods. “She told us how you saved a Reaper and turned him back into a man, and then led your warriors into an alliance, and how you were so devoted to your people that you sacrificed yourself for them to save them from the Mountain Men. And lived.”

She wants to scoff. “That’s not exactly how it happened—she left a few things out,” she says instead, with a bitter edge to her voice. Something in her chest buzzes and lifts at the thought of Lexa telling their story to the kids at the foot of her throne, but it’s overshadowed by the thought that she could so easily gloss over everything that happened once they arrived at the mountain. Seeking to bury the unwelcome melding of sensations, Clarke begins, “So did she—”

“Were there really five thousand warriors in the mountain?” he interrupts.

“Did Lexa tell you that?”

“No…” he admits. “My friend Ariah told me that. She heard it from her brother, a Rockline guard.”

A smile pulls at her lips despite her reluctance when she sees doubt color the wonder in his eyes. “Not quite,” she tells him. Ninety-six warriors, fifty-one children, a dozen essential personnel and a little over two hundred civilians. Not a number she’ll forget or talk about; she looks to change the subject instead.

“If Titus has lessons right now, where is Lexa?”

“Oh!” he says, remembering his purpose for slipping into Clarke’s room. Once more he draws himself up to his full height and adopts the character of Lexa’s foremost trainee: he’s been tasked with something. He takes a deep breath. “Heda Lexa would like me to inform you that you are welcome to meet her before our weapons practice in the forest glen later this morning. She said that one of your personal guards can escort you through the main tunnel out to our training area. Heda Lexa is training there on her own now.”

Clarke stopped listening at “forest glen” purely because it was something other than “fucking tower” which she has muttered a fair few times. Forget waiting until the Nightblood training later—Aden barely finishes his invitation before Clarke is grabbing her coat and walking them out into the hallway.

“I’ll be at the training,” Clarke tells Aden—his eyes light up. He succeeded. She pats his shoulder. “Now get back to your lessons.”

As soon as he turns down the hallway, Clarke is turning to her guard, Russ. “You heard all of that, didn’t you?”

“I did,” is the gruff reply.

“So you’ll take me through the tunnels to the training ground?”

He nods.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to the lovely and talented papurrcat, who has an awesome new art piece coming out very soon. everyone should go check her out!

The tunnels are everything advertised. Pre-apocalyptic maintenance shafts with unidentified liquid dripping from pipes along the wall and unseen creatures skittering across the concrete in dark corners, the shafts lit only as far as the orange sphere of light cast by the torch Russ holds aloft. All things that have never stopped Clarke before, and won’t stop her now. Anticipation not unlike what she felt during her first steps on Earth floods her veins—she’s going to the ground. She stays close on Russ’s heels as he leads her down a straight, wide tunnel toward a square of bright light in the distant darkness. Based on the number of side shafts, forks, hand-carved offshoots, and caved-in corridors, Clarke can only imagine the byzantine network beneath the city, the secret access the tunnels grant to so many buildings and off-limits zones. But none of this infinite possibility interests Clarke nearly as much as that little square of light at the end of the tunnel, growing bigger as her pseudo-freedom grows closer.

At last, the tunnel opens on the edge of the forest outside of Polis, darkness giving way to the soft, green-yellow glow of sunlight through the thick forest canopy above; likewise, the wet echoing slap of her boots on concrete gives way to silence as she steps into thick moss…but the silence lasts only a moment before the hissing of a sword through the air and the ringing of metal against metal reach Clarke’s ears. The sound comes from somewhere above her—after a moment of searching, Clarke picks out a path that winds up a small, rocky hill and then she’s off, clambering upwards with her eyes on the crest of the hill above her, drawn to the noise like a moth to flame.

As she nears the top, she picks up the softer sounds beneath the harsher tones of training: the patter and dance of boots on hard-packed earth, and the rhythm of labored breathing, cut through with muttered curses she can’t understand. The sounds ignite a strange curiosity in her, as much as she might fight it, and when she finally gets to the top of the hill and all of the sounds, harsh and soft, coalesce into the vision of Lexa in training, the curiosity becomes satisfaction.

Clarke can’t identify why, but as much as the sound drew her forward, the sight of Lexa roots her to the spot. She watches with the eyes of an artist as Lexa faces off against two Trikru guards, each a foot taller than her and twice her weight.

Lexa slowly paces at the far edge of the training arena, keeping her enemies in front of her, head swiveling back and forth between them. The one on her right holds a sword; the one on the left, a spear. Lexa has a sword in either hand, but to Clarke, the odds are nowhere near even: both of her opponents are fully armored, while Lexa trains in breeches and a thin tank-top, the sweat-soaked material clinging to her body. The skin left bare shines in the yellow-green sunlight filtering through the forest canopy above.

Clarke is entranced.

The guards approach at an even pace, angling to come at Lexa from either side. But before they can advance too close, she forces their hand, lunging toward the one with the spear, spinning past the sharp spearhead he thrusts forward, and getting inside so that he can’t defend himself; she whacks him on the shoulder with the blunted training sword and lands a knee in his stomach, sending him stumbling back with a groan.

The one with the sword senses his opening and rushes in, attacking from behind. Lexa manages to block his first swing and step out of range of the second, but he presses on, forcing her to the edge of the clearing. With nowhere left to go, she drops into a guarded stance; he lunges, she parries it away; he lunges again, and again she knocks the blow to the side. She doesn’t attack, she doesn’t counter, just bares her teeth and narrows her eyes and invites him to attack her defense over and over again, the clashing of steel creating a discordant song that echoes off the trees around them.

And then, behind him, the guard with the spear starts to rise from the ground. Lexa’s eyes flash to him and then back to her current target. He swings again and this time, knocks one of the swords from her hands.

Too easily.

Clarke, who isn’t exhausted or blind with battle lust, can see the ploy before the guard with the sword can. Overzealous with his accomplishment, he lunges forward and this time Lexa dodges the thrust, diving past him and sending a crushing blow to the side of his knee with her sword hand as the she grabs the strap of his shoulder guard with her now-free hand. Using all of her momentum, she drags the off balance man and manages to fling him into his injured comrade and the two guards crumple to the ground, groaning.

Lexa stands over them, chest heaving. Victorious.

She’s wild-eyed, strands of loose hair pulled free from her simple braid, beads of sweat rolling down her face. Against the backdrop of the serene, silent woods, with tiny insects floating between shafts of warm sunlight that filter down from above, Lexa looks out of place. She belongs on a barren, burning battlefield somewhere, surveying the carnage, weighing the costs and gains of her victory. This was no training for her—Clarke half-believes that Lexa would have died fighting.

She makes the smallest movement and Lexa’s predator eyes dart from her fallen opponents to Clarke. For a heartbeat, it’s as if she doesn’t recognize her, but before Clarke can say a word, Lexa blinks and resolves her face into her usual even mask.

“Wanheda,” she says, hiding her heavy breathing. She ducks her head in a small bow of greeting. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Aden said you invited me,” Clarke replies, confused.

Lexa hesitates. “I did, but I still did not expect...”

“The dinner. Right.” Her lips twist into a small smile of apology and guilt, but she fights the sentiment back in hopes that Lexa wouldn’t see it. “I just needed some fresh air,” she explains instead, airily, “and to get out of that damn tower.”

“Of course,” Lexa agrees. “With hope, all threat will be eliminated soon and you’ll be able to tour the city freely. Or return to your people,” she adds quickly.

Clarke only nods. Now that the training session seems to be over, with Lexa’s guards levering themselves to their feet and limping over to rejoin their smirking comrades, her logic has returned and she can’t quite rationalize her decision for continuing to stand there, making small talk with Lexa. Just as her mind begins to wander back to the tunnels, or to convincing Lexa to let her explore the forest, the Commander picks up on her uncertainty.

“Have you eaten?” Lexa asks.

“I...” 

_ Have. Say that you have. You’re not hungry. _

“I haven’t.”

“You’re welcome to anything,” Lexa assures her, pointing across the clearing to a low stone wall, upon which sits a platter of fruit and nuts and meat, not unlike Clarke’s breakfast offerings each day. Heading over, Lexa pours cups of water from a pitcher and offers one out--reluctantly, Clarke follows her to accept the drink, but only once she gets to the wall does she realize that they’re overlooking the whole of Polis.

What she had previously only seen from one balcony at the height of the central tower now takes on new life in this breathtaking panorama. A gridwork of straight and narrow streets divides the ruins into blocks, a reminder of the city, the society, that had stood here a century ago. A technologically advanced city, teeming with light and life and human history. But now, this skeleton of streets is the only memory of what once was. Piles of rubble and debris now mar the orderly lines of the streets; some buildings are habitable, some have caved in, some are simply bombed out piles of rock. But the longer Clarke looks, the more she sees: these ruins still teem with life as they had before, with survivors bustling through the streets and snatches of green bursting through the brown and grey stone. Vines have crept over several buildings, a wild forest has sprawled out of the confines of what was once a central park, and resolute trees have sprouted straight up through the cement at various intersections. Nature has triumphed over the man-made, reclaimed what was taken from it. A city killed has risen again.

“Clarke?”

She jumps; she’d lost herself. Somewhat self-consciously, having been caught in her moment of wonder, Clarke grabs a strip of dried meat and turns to take a seat. She rejects the pile of boulders Lexa perches upon, opting instead for a nearby tree stump out of reach of Lexa. It’s still close enough to make Clarke focus very intently on her food, for fear of losing herself once more in the view--either of Polis or of the glistening skin and watchful green eyes of the girl beside her. They sit in silence for along time. Lexa seems to be waiting, but her slow, even breathing is content.

“It’s pretty,” Clarke admits at last. Lexa looks to her in surprise; Clarke indicates the view of the city. “It’s different than what we see from the tower.”

Lexa nods and looks out over the city again. “Sometimes I wonder what it was like before the end.”

Clarke considers.  _ Probably not as pretty, _ she decides. It’s steel and glass and smooth lines against charred ashes and rubble, yes, but steel is cold and there’s something to be said for the feeling of innate resilience among the ruins, of writing a new history after the old had been wiped away. Polis has an ethereal beauty to it; something she could capture in a drawing but not in words.

“I’d like to see it soon,” Clarke says. “All of it, in the streets, the buildings.”

“I’d like you to as well,” Lexa replies. She studies a bright red fruit in her hands, passing it back and forth. “With hope, and with the arrival of the clan leaders, we’ll soon settle the discontent and peace will resume. You’ll be free to tour the city then. I could also take you to see the other clans. Or you could return home, as you wish.”

The last part comes out hurried, like a last minute addition meant to cover any hint of a probing question or hopeful offer--a diplomatic backpedal out of dangerous personal territory. Clarke stays quiet, leaving Lexa to languish in the uncertainty of whether or not she overstepped her bounds. As they lapse into silence again, Clarke watches Lexa busy herself with the fruit in her hands. She carefully slices into it and pries it apart, then plucks out a handful of small purple seeds with the tip of her knife, collecting them in her hand. When she notices Clarke’s gaze, she shifts the seeds to the flat of her blade and stretches it across the space between them, in wordless offering.

“No, thank you,” Clarke murmurs. She’s not sure what they are, but more importantly, she can’t bring herself to accept this small peace offering. This is tentative, what they’re doing. She fears if she pushes too far in any direction, all of the emotions--good and bad--will come back to overwhelm her after she worked so hard to mute them. Lexa shrugs and eats the seeds herself, turning back to Polis, eyes far away.

Clarke doesn’t turn back. Her focus and her sense of wonder has now turned to Lexa, and to her myriad of different feelings about the girl. For so long, Clarke clung to anger as if it were her only lifeline. White-hot and blinding, her anger at Lexa would burn away all else, stop the flow of emotions like the cauterization of a bleeding wound. In the moments when her grip on her anger lessens--like now--the dizzying flurry of emotions spring to life again: the sense of rejection, the admiration, the respect, the attraction, the fear, the failure. Almost everything she has experienced since landing on Earth has some connection to Lexa; she has the growing, gnawing sense that everything she will do in the future will have some connection to Lexa. How is she to overcome that? Leaving Polis had been her first choice, but it seems impossible with the current state of things. She can cling to her fear and anger tighter than ever before, but Lexa seems determined not to stoke a dying flame, and soon the blistering fire of her rage and desire for revenge won’t be enough to keep her conflicting feelings at bay.

“Heda!”

The moment breaks--mercifully, for Clarke. Titus strides into the clearing at the head of a procession of armored Nightbloods and Lexa’s snap to Commander is instant: with a twirl of her blade, she wipes the blood-red juice from the seeds on her pants and sheathes it, then tosses the rest of the half-eaten fruit to a nearby attendant and rises to her feet. Clarke stays seated, partially concealed behind Lexa, but Titus still bemoans the sight of her.

“Is there nothing Wanheda is not permitted from?” he asks Lexa.

“Leaving,” Clarke points out, voice dry.

Titus glares at her. “Mockery is not the product of a strong mind, Wanheda.”

Her heart skips a beat. That feels so long ago. “So I’ve heard,” she says, clenching her jaw.

Lexa turns her head over her shoulder to meet Clarke’s eyes, and Clarke catches a glimpse of a secret smile on her lips.

“I also can’t visit any of the other floors in the tower,” she adds, more reasonably.

Lexa turns back to Titus. “Clarke makes an excellent point. Titus, you shall escort Wanheda through the tower, show her the residences, explain the placement and history of the clans, while I train the Nightbloods this afternoon.”

Judging by the look on his face, this is the most deeply personal betrayal Titus has ever experienced; his eyes flash and his lip curls with distaste as he brings himself up to his full height, towering over Lexa, ready to object in his deep, booming voice. And all it takes is a simple raise of Lexa’s chin to silence him. After a disbelieving glare, he ducks his head.

“As you wish, Commander.”

Lexa speaks next to the assembled Nightbloods: “Swords today. Select your weapons and training partners, while I speak to our guest for a moment.”

Once her back is turned, some of Lexa’s charges grin and wiggle in excitement, earning them elbows from the older novitiates before they scurry off to grab their training swords. This pulls a smile from Clarke before she smoothes her face to meet Lexa’s gaze--an apologetic one, surprisingly.

“They need my full attention today,” Lexa says. “I can’t be--otherwise, I’d allow you to stay and watch the training. Hopefully Titus’s lesson and the different clans will keep you busy this afternoon.”

“I’m sure it will,” Clarke says, with a glance at him.  _ Or he will-- _ right now, she finds his simmering resentment oddly amusing. Lexa does too, judging by the sparkle in her eye.

“Good,” she says. “Thank you for accepting my invitation today.”

Clarke flushes pink, thinking of the night before and her rejection of Lexa’s dinner invitation. “I”m sorry, about--”

“Don’t be. I understand.” And yet Clarke feels a pang of guilt when Lexa says nothing more, her lips pursed tightly together; she’s saved by Titus calling out for her.

“Wanheda, please,” he says, waiting impatiently at the edge of the clearing. “The Nightblood’s training cannot be delayed any further.”

Lexa bids her a quiet goodbye and Clarke heads back across the clearing to join Titus, but as soon as she draws near, he sets off at a steady clip, scrambling down the hill towards the tunnel with surprising agility for his age. He doesn’t slow when he reaches the tunnel entrance, either, forcing Clarke into a jog to catch up and keep up with his long strides. But there’s no way his determination to ignore her outweighs her determination not to be ignored, to get under his skin by making a resolute nuisance of herself. Clarke matches his pace for the entire length of the tunnel and even manages to step ahead of him when they reach the central stairwell of the tower.

She hides a smirk when she at last hears his sigh of resignation, five floors up.

“Well, then. As you know, Lexa commands the top two levels of the tower,” he begins, “for her living quarters, diplomatic chambers, and the Nightblood dormitories as well as diplomatic spaces. And apparently guest rooms, as of late.”

“Yes,” Clarke fires back. “I can tell you’re not used to accommodating guests.”

He huffs, and as they get up to the seventh floor, he draws level with her. Her legs have started to tire from trying to stay ahead of him.

“Why aren’t we taking the lift?” she asks.

He snorts, a noise of bitter amusement. “Did your guard not explain when he escorted you down to the training area?”

“He tends to only answer questions he knows Lexa has allowed him to answer.”

Titus’s jaw tightens. “Your Skaikru renegades who stormed the tower with guns on the night of the summit damaged the lift. It is currently being repaired.”

She bristles at his accusatory tone. “My people thought--knew--there was an assassin at the summit. It’s just a lift, is it really worth--”

“They executed the two lift operators as well.”

She stops short. “They what?”

“We found them that evening,” Titus says, turning and advancing on her, with a strange venomous delight in the fact that she didn’t know. “They had no weapons. They presented no threat. There was no sign of a struggle, just two bullets in the back of their heads.”

“They wouldn’t--they wouldn’t do that…”

“Your people are executioners of the highest order,” Titus replies coldly, ensuring every word hurts. “Just as the mountain men did, they perceive us to be savages, killers. They would have done this regardless of whether there was an assassin or not.”

And Clarke doesn’t know how to respond to that, because she’s not sure that he’s wrong. The way she remembers Bellamy before the mountain and the way that he had looked when he stormed into the throne room… like a man on fire, his finger on the trigger and blood lust in his eyes. Even Octavia was wild and feral and fearful. Those were not the people she left three months ago, but how could things have gone so horribly wrong? As Titus turns and moves on, oblivious to her disinterest, Clarke replays that night over and over again in her head, searching for an explanation.

“To continue what I was saying, Heda commands the two highest levels. Trikru ambassadors and detachments reside directly below the top two levels, and Floudonkru below them, but currently--”

“How did they get through the tunnels?” Clarke asks suddenly. “It’s a maze, and my people have never been to Polis before. Weren’t the tunnel mouths guarded?”

“They were. We found four more bodies along the path your people took; and it was the Ice Nation Spy who led your killers. She knew the route.”

Perhaps it’s the only tangible route of action, or perhaps because she needs to seize upon another explanation to keep her from confronting the more terrible one, but she has fire in her blood as she lunges up the steps and catches Titus by the elbow.

“Lexa told me you’d show me the tunnels,” she says quickly. “I want to see them,  _ now.” _

“ _ Absolutely not.”  _ He wrenches his arm out of her grasp.

“Why not?” she demands.

“Enough people already know the layout of the tunnels,” Titus growls. “The routes and exit points do not need to become common knowledge. Regardless of your status as an honored guest within the tower, no Sky Person should know everything about the tower and the Commander.”

Clarke narrows her eyes. “Why, don’t trust me?” she asks, icy cold. It’s a challenge.

Titus matches her. “Not when I hear from your guards that you’ve held unscheduled and unsanctioned meetings with ambassadors. And you’d speak of trust, Wanheda?”

“He…” she scrambles. “He wanted me to assure him that the Sky People wouldn’t leave the coalition despite what Lexa did or will do. And he wanted to secure trade promises before the other clans could.”

A reasonable enough explanation, and false only because of the lie of omission, but Clarke isn’t about to tell him that Boone came to her with the possibility of an alliance against Lexa and behind her back, should she fall. Clarke keeps an even face as Titus stares her down--she dares him to doubt her--but he is not cowed by the threat of Wanheda.

“Do you know what my role in this tower is?” he asks, voice low. “Do you know what I am to the Commander?”

_ An irritating skin rash, _ Clarke thinks. Instead, she keeps the sarcasm but responds with the more diplomatic, “Schedule-keeper?”

“ _ Flame _ keeper,” he replies. “Lexa has led our people out of war; she leads them forward; she is the flame that keeps them warm and provides the light that guides their way. And it is my responsibility to keep her safe. I have served four Commanders before her, and none have accomplished what she has, but this means that her victories endanger her the way no Commander has yet been endangered. Her enemies circle like vultures. She burns for this coalition but there is darkness around her. I must keep it at bay, to ensure her survival and the survival of our people.”

Clarke’s throat has run dry, but she swallows against it to keep the bite in her voice. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because we live in dark times, Wanheda, and we cannot afford to lose the Flame. War gathers on the horizon, inevitable. And Lexa cannot afford a blind spot as large as the one she holds when it comes to you. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, she does--so I must act as her guard, and protect her from what she does not see coming.”

“So do I.” If nothing else, she knows this truth, despite all that Lexa has done. She swallows again and raises her voice to keep the trembling out of it. “I need the Commander alive if my people are going to survive.”

“Then we are on the same side,” Titus says, relenting. “For now.”

That doesn’t reassure her, not when she’s confident Titus would do whatever it takes to get her out of the tower and into permanent exile, never again to endanger Lexa or the coalition. Once amusing, now his ire just drains her, so with a huff, Clarke shoves past him and continues her journey up the stairs. They still have several flights to go and she wants to be away from him as quickly as possible.

“I take it you’ve no further interest in the rest of the clans?” he drawls behind her.

“No.”

“Allow me to escort you to your quarters, then.”

“There’s only one staircase, I can find it myself.”

Titus follows her up anyway, always keeping at a distance behind her--as if Clarke might suddenly lash out with a kick if he follows too close. She refuses to acknowledge his presence, however, and once she ascends to the top of the tower and Titus is able to pass off her custody to the guard at the doorway, he falls back, disappearing into the shadows of the stairway as Clarke storms down the hall and into her room. She had actually half-enjoyed herself in the forest clearing--the fresh air had been good for her, an injection of fresh life into her blood. And somehow, Titus had ruined it in their brief time together in the stairway, and now she is right back where she started this morning, locked in a tower and fuming about it.

Her feet find the invisible path she has trodden into the floor over the past several days, but, for the first time, the obsessive anger doesn’t take a full grip on her. It lurks, begging her to give in and surrender to it, but she holds it at bay, puts her willpower into keeping her mind and her emotions clear.

It becomes a choice, for the first time. Peace, or an insatiable, restless fury?

Her eyes land on the charcoal and parchment on the table and something stirs within her. With an almost childlike curiosity, she crosses the room towards it. She picks up the charcoal.

It won’t last, she knows that. But for the first time, she chooses peace.

 

*

 

The next day begins early, not with the placid rising sun, but shouting and stomping in the hallway outside Clarke’s room. Trigedasleng and English mix into a steady stream, the only words of which she can decipher are “war” “army” “betrayal” and “be prepared,” with various degrees of anger and fear in the voices.

No.

She jolts out of her bed, dresses as quickly as possible, and races out to join the stampede of ambassadors and guards towards Lexa’s war room, panicked and confused.

“What’s going on?” she demands.

No one answers her--she’s not sure anyone even hears her, and it only gets worse when she pushes into the room to find ambassadors and clan leaders shouting at one another across the table and banging their fists on the smooth wood. Some are still pulling on their jackets and armor or rushing into the room with robes flapping behind them. When one attendant shoves another, Lexa’s guards rush forward to separate the two, sending them sprawling to the floor. And Lexa is nowhere to be found--she is the steadying presence Clarke always looks to and now searches for, but her seat at the head of the table stands empty, and without her, the ambassadors are spiraling quickly towards bloodshed.

“The Ice Nation army--”

As she searches the room for a familiar face, someone shoves past her and knocks her aside--afraid for the first time, she thinks of her gun. Kane left it for her at Abby’s insistence, just a small handgun for her protection, smuggled into Polis and now hidden beneath her mattress  beside the knife Roan had given her.

_ “Enough!” _

The sound of her voice is more reassuring than a gun in her hand; Clarke whirls to find Lexa striding through the doors, a snarl on her face and her red sash billowing behind her. Such a picture is the first thing to make her feel safe. But even her shout can’t shatter the mounting tensions in the room, as the ambassadors continue to scream at each other at the far end of the table. Lexa doesn’t hesitate: in one swift movement, she seizes a spear from one of the guards, flips it up in the air, and brings down the shaft with a tremendous power on the surface of the table, snapping the weapon in half with a crack like a gunshot. The sound rattles around the stone room and silences it at once.

“The ambassadors will take their seats,” Lexa says, a low-voiced threat. 

Their obedience is very much forced; many of the ambassadors who had been at each other’s throats just a moment ago still look ready to brawl, sending hard glares at one another and at the commander as they shuffle to their seats, but none of them want become a target of Lexa’s wrath in this moment. Even Clarke stays silent. Now is not the time to undermine the Commander by demanding information personally. She takes her seat.

“Evidently, the news has spread,” Lexa announces from the head of the table. “The Ice Nation Army has marched south, and they are within two days of Polis.”

The voices rise again, frightened and filled with rage.

_ “We need to send an army of our own to meet them!”  _

_ “Threaten the Prince!” _

_ “No, that’s the reason they’re coming--free the Prince!” _

_ “They would never attack all of us!” _

Lexa’s jaw works back and forth as they argue, her gaze fixated at a spot in the center of the table. Ashe, the former warrior turned ambassador from the Lake People in the North, rises to his feet, addressing Lexa with his booming voice.

“Heda, please,” he says. “Ice Nation warriors do not march for their own amusement. The Lake People know better than anyone else what they can do. We need to be swift and meet them openly before they advance further. If our leader were here, he would demand we fight.”

Lexa nods, considering it. “The problem is, Ambassador, our scouts reported that the army has stopped on their path and has remained in the same location for three days now.”

“So they’re sitting ducks,” he says, with a bloody grin.

“No--it suggests they’re not going to attack Polis.”

“What does it mean, then?” the Shallow Valley clan leader asks. She had arrived yesterday, one of the first.

Another ambassador snorts derisively. “I anticipate we won’t attack either, in this case.”

“Which is the smarter choice,” grunts the Delphi clan ambassador. “Waiting for them to make their move and being forced to defend ourselves from within Polis will save more lives than meeting them on an open field.”

To this, Lexa nods appreciatively, which earns a roar of disapproval from the martial-minded ambassadors, including Ashe, who is still on his feet.

“Heda, you cannot mean to ignore the threat,” he says. “Lake People warriors, Lake People clan members can tell you what it means when the Ice Nation marches; we’re closer than any other clan to Ice Nation lands.”

“Ashe, be seated,” Lexa growls. “I’ve not yet made a decision but--”

Instead, the hulking man turns on his heel and storms toward the door. The two guards at the door make a move to stop him, but Lexa has them stand down with a single shake of her head. Ashe disappears, his pounding bootsteps audible all the way down the hallway, while Lexa goes back to staring at the spot on the table, playing out all options in her mind. The rest of the ambassadors murmur nervously.

Clarke is still trying to wrap her mind around it: a marching Ice Nation army camped two days away, content to just sit there. She knows little about Grounder warfare but she knows they’re too far to attack without advanced warning even if they were to move during the night--but why? That question is evidently the one that Lexa is considering, and the one she can’t--and won’t--answer before she makes a move. Clarke just wishes she had some insight, some way of seeing behind Lexa’s green eyes, so that she could understand the inner machinations and help her…

She’s so preoccupied with Lexa and Lexa with her thoughts that neither of them notice that Boone, the older, bearded Rockline ambassador who had come to Clarke’s room that evening, has risen to his feet. He has to clear his throat to gain Lexa’s attention.

“Commander, if I may?” he asks when she looks up.

“Of course.”

“You need to act fast and decisively. The coalition has just lost, at least for the time being, the Lake People ambassador. The Floudonkru ambassador and Ice Nation ambassador--and their prince--sit in cells, awaiting your judgement. Perhaps we should speak to them to seek some sort of restoration of the coalition. Otherwise, you’re down to only nine loyal clans, and if we continue to fracture--”

“Ten,” Clarke says. Boone jumps with the surprise of hearing her speak and swivels around to look at her--as does Lexa and every other head in the room. 

“I beg your pardon?”

She repeats herself, voice clear and even as the tone of a bell: “Ten loyal clans. There are thirteen clans, minus Lake People, Ice Nation, and Boatkru. There are still ten loyal clans.”

Boone grits his jaw, the tension of the muscle barely visible beneath his beard. He narrows his eyes at Clarke, but she doesn’t pale beneath his glare. “Of course,” he mutters, with a deep bow. “I had forgotten our newest members.”

“Understandable,” Clarke says smoothly.

That doesn’t lessen his glare when he looks at her again. “I will take this as an absolute assurance that you will stand with the coalition then, no matter what?”

Clarke thinks of their conversation: his offer of protection were the coalition to crumble, even if it put her and Lexa on opposite sides of the battlefield. Rockline and Skaikru could protect each other; help each other. He’s calling her on that now; testing her, before the entire court, to see if she’ll keep to the word she gave him.

The moment seems to slow. She looks to Lexa, who watches her intently, and when she sees the mind working behind her gray-green eyes, she remembers Mount Weather, remembers how Lexa did what was best for her people.

“We stand with what is best for the Sky People,” Clarke announces. “And a peaceful coalition is best.”

“I...am very glad to hear that,” Boone says slowly, blinking. He can’t decide if it’s a true statement of loyalty to Lexa or a coded message about his offer, and honestly, neither can Clarke. His body stiff, he turns back to Lexa. “Regardless of whether it’s ten clans or nine or fewer, we must come to a decision soon. I’d like to suggest that we have the opportunity to speak with the imprisoned Boatkru and Ice Nation ambassadors.”

Lexa’s eyes had darted suspiciously between Boone and Clarke during their exchange, but with Clarke’s assurance and Boone’s submission, she can turn to him confidently. “You make an excellent point, Boone, and because of that, I’ve come to my decision.” The ambassadors sit up in their seats. “The imprisoned ambassadors will address the court this evening, as will Ashe from the Lake People, once he has found his reason again. We’ll send scouts to meet with the leaders of the Ice Nation army to discern their intentions, and to inform them that any act of aggression will result in the death of the Prince. In the meantime, we’ll post extra guards on the walls of Polis and throughout the city streets.

“What we will not do, however,” she continues, “Is attack them. It would be foolish to rush into a battle neither side wants.”

The earlier roar of disapproval is much more muted now, but amid the grumbled affirmations from the ambassadors, the discontent in the room is palpable. Lexa seems to be immune to it as she dismisses the ambassadors and watches them file out, her elbows resting on the arms of her chair, her fingers tented in front of her chin, and her dark eyes following the last body out the room: Clarke’s.

Clarke had planned it that way, of course. She follows the ambassadors down the hallway as they head toward the stairwell that will take them to their separate living quarters, but as soon as she sees the last one reach the stairs, she turns and hurries back to the war room with a grim determination. A guard makes a grab for her but she dodges past his hand without a second glance.

In the process, she runs directly into Lexa as she exits the war room.

“Clarke, what--”

“We need to talk,” Clarke says, waving a hand. “I need to know what’s really happening.”

Lexa sighs and steps past her--again, she has to motion the guards to stand down and keep from wrenching Clarke away. “I don’t have time right now, Clarke, but at tonight’s meeting, we’ll know more.” She sets off down the hallway, toward the stairwell.

“Where are you going?” Clarke demands. 

“To speak with Prince Roan.”

Her answer is instant: “I’m coming.”

Lexa doesn’t object; Clarke doesn’t give her much opportunity to, setting off immediately to catch up with her. Talking to Roan and forcing answers out of him, that’s the action Clarke needs to take right now, rather than pacing the floor of her room, feeling like a trapped deer stalked by a wolf. She needs to know why the Ice Nation is moving, why he wanted her to kill Lexa, why he sought her as an ally, why the Ice Queen would promise her protection, why why why. She needs to work out the mystery that has been hanging over her no matter where she goes, and the only two people in this tower who can give her the needed answers are Lexa and Roan.

But before she and Lexa set off--”Wait, I need to get something from my room.”

She ducks into it and hurries to the mattress, searching for the hidden knife. She can hear Lexa’s quiet footsteps enter the room as well, but she pays them no mind, until she finds the knife, turns, and sees the girl looking at the parchment covering the table.

Clarke’s drawings. She’d occupied herself with them last night, losing herself in the scrape of black charcoal over yellowed parchment, sketching whatever came to mind until her fingers were blackened and the charcoal had been reduced to nothing but dust. Lexa looks now at a half finished sketch of the view of Polis from the hilltop clearing. Clarke had drawn what she could remember, the rigid street lines and the clutter of debris and the ever-encroaching tide of nature retaking the city. It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but Lexa gazes at the drawing the same way she had looked over Polis the previous afternoon; her fingers, hesitant at first, reach out to brush along the charcoal lines.

“Clarke, this is excellent,” she murmurs.

Clarke feels heat rise in her cheeks. She shakes her head, forcing herself to direct her attention elsewhere. “We don’t...we don’t have time for this, Lexa,” she says, clearing her throat.

Lexa pulls her fingers back into a clenched fist and straightens her spine. “Of course,” she says. “I’m sorry, you’re right. Let’s go speak to Roan.”

 

*

 

Storming down the steps of the tower, side by side with Lexa, Clarke feels power and purpose coursing through her at long last. She has spent so much time running, so much time dreaming of escape, but now, she’s headed toward something, toward answers: she won’t be handed them on a platter like her rich breakfasts, but she will demand them, recall the full strength of her willpower and take the information by force. She’ll get to the bottom of everything, protect her people, and maybe then she can finally settle the disquiet within her chest and go back to who she was. The same fire emanates from Lexa; they don’t have to say a word to know that they both feel the same way.

The last time they felt like this, they were leading an army to Mount Weather. She grits her teeth at the thought and presses on. This will not end the way that did.

The cells are in the tunnels, she discovers, not far from the bottom level of the staircase in what looks to be an old subway station. They stride past rows of prison cells fashioned from maintenance closets, ticket offices, and boiler rooms. There are even a few cells with walls made of piles of rubble stacked in corners and locked with iron bars. Most are empty, but on the few occasions Clarke lets her gaze wander from their destination, she sees pairs of bloodshot, sunken eyes staring back at her from between the bars.

Roan has two guards at his cell door, at the farthest end of the block, separate from the rest of the prisoners and behind an actual door, rather than bars. Conspirators are isolated for a reason; Clarke wonders if he’s had any human contact in the days since Lexa had him arrested.

When the guards open the door, Roan raises his head from the pile of blankets he uses for a bed and Clarke instantly knows he hasn’t: like the other prisoners, his eyes are sunken and dark. They burn for a moment when he focuses on Lexa, before fading into a bored, non-committal glare.

“This is no way to treat royalty,” he says, gesturing around at the squalor in his cell. An empty plate sits in the corner; a few furs on the floor are his only source of comfort, and a grate in the ceiling the only source of light.

“You’re not royalty,” Lexa says simply. “You’ve been disowned.”

“Not by my mother’s choice, let me remind you.”

“She’s made plenty of choices that led to this.”

“But to disown her only child?” Roan asks, in a voice that is almost taunting. He looks to Clarke. “My mother is obsessed with legacy. Disowning her heir was not a popular decision for her or the people, but her hand was forced. Remember what I told you about Lexa giving you one side of the story?”

“What you told her is the reason you’re in these cells,” Lexa murmurs. “I recommend you not prolong your stay here with more treason.”

There’s a hard edge to her voice that Clarke rarely hears. It’s enough to prick up her attention, pique a desire for more, but Roan sighs, leaning back into a more comfortable position against the wall of his cell. 

“What brings you here, then? Am I getting a trial any time soon?”

“Your mother has sent an army to Polis,” Lexa intones, more firmly. “I want to know why.”

“Well, I assume it’s not to rescue me.”

“You’re right. They marched to within two days of Polis, and stopped, waiting.”

“Then how should I know why they’re here?” Roan demands.

Clarke steps forward. “Because you know more than you tell,” she says, teeth gritted. She pulls the knife he gave her from her waistband and throws it at his feet, letting the clanging of metal on stone emphasize the steel in her voice. “You tried to have Lexa killed, you bought the guards, and now your army is waiting outside the walls. Those aren’t separate events. Talk.”

She has half a mind to pick up the knife again when he narrows his eyes at her. “Like she said, I’m disowned. It’s not my army. If you can’t figure out why they’re there, maybe you should question the rule of your great and powerful Heda?”

“If you don’t know anything, why did you want me to kill her? Why give me the knife?” Clarke asks. “And why have the Boatkru assassin attack me?”

The last one is a shot in the dark, but she’s going to wring everything she can from Roan, she might as well try.

“That was Boatkru,” Roan spits back. “Ice Nation doesn’t associate with them; next to Trikru, they’re out greatest enemy. And I’d like to think my assassination idea was more sound than a maniac with a knife at the summit. All I had to do was remind you what she did, I knew you’d do the rest.”

His eyes flick to Lexa, and Clarke can’t help but look back too. Lexa’s jaw is set, her face in shadows in the dim light of the cell, but Clarke can still read the flicker of emotion. The guilt. It twists her stomach--she has no right to feel guilty now, not when Clarke has been carrying that weight for months. Lexa doesn’t even know what guilt is. She marched home with an army intact, a savior. Clarke marched home haunted by thoughts of the burned bodies of children.

She the feeling of vitriol on Roan, instead. “Don’t fuck with me. That’s too much risk for your neck, you’d never pin that much on the hope that I’d be angry enough to kill her. You don’t know me well enough for that.”

“I’ve been exiled from my lands for four years now,” Roan growls, finally dropping the nonchalance and leaning forward. “You were gone from yours for what, three months? Do you wish you could go back and see your people, Wanheda?”

Clarke flinches at the name, the acidic way he says it. She doesn’t answer. 

“If you were in my shoes, four years of having no home, of being no one, you’d take that risk too,” Roan finishes. He sits back again. “The only way I go back to my people, back to my mother, is with a prize like the head of the Commander. It’s nothing personal. It’s just purely selfish. But that’s as far as my conspiracy went, and one could argue that it’s the doing of the Commander herself anyway. Have her tell you the story sometime.”

“I’m not interested in a history lesson right now,” she says. She absolutely will demand these answers from Lexa later, but right now, her focus is on Roan. “How many guards did you pay off? Who were they?”

“Come on, Wanheda, I’m not--”

“Don’t call her that again.”

With that, Lexa steps forward, into the light to stand at Clarke’s side. She drops her voice into a low threat, backed by embers glowing white-hot in her eyes: stoked properly, given the fuel, they’ll explode into flame in the most violent ways. With that gaze, she warns Roan not to test her.

Roan holds up his hands, giving in. “Fine, fine. I have no interest in being her any longer than you plan on holding me. So for the last time: I paid the guards not to kill  _ Clarke _ if she and I had to run, if she had actually gone along with my plan. I didn’t ask anything more. And as for the army?” He shrugs. “If they really have stopped two days short of attacking positions, then it’s intimidation.”

“Intimidation?” Clarke asks, furrowing her brows.

“There’s a clan leader meeting soon, isn’t there?” Roan asks. “My mother is hoping to sow discord and doubt, to show off the strength of the Ice Nation, to shake alliances. But attack? She’s smarter than that. The Polis guards, the Trikru Army, the walls, the city--she can’t take that with just her army.”

The Trikru army--that Lexa has sent to protect Arkadia. Clarke stiffens but Roan says the words confidently, without mocking: he doesn’t know that Polis is so unprotected.

“I’ll consider this when it comes to your trial,” Lexa says coldly. “Clarke, if you’re satisfied…?”

She’s not. Clarke had been so convinced that Roan would provide the clarity she needs to make sense of everything that’s happening--the attack, the assassin, the guards, the army--but instead, she received only ambivalence and arrogance and a deep, bitter frustration. She wants to take the knife at her feet and fling it against the wall, but at Lexa’s gentle insistence, she seizes the weapon, stuffs it back into her waistband, covers it with her shirt, and exits the cell ahead of Lexa.

Her one comfort is that the moment the door closes, Lexa drops her unruffled Commander gaze and the same grinding, burning frustration Clarke feels seems to pour out of her. Each step forward is controlled, as if too little concentration would result in some violent motion, and she works her jaw back and forth, saying nothing for several minutes while they storm back out of the cells. 

“I appreciate your backing with the ambassadors,” Lexa says, once the cells and the guards are far behind them. “It’s especially important now.”

“Why’s that?” Clarke replies.

“They fear you,” Lexa says quietly. “And respect you.”

This earns a snort of derision. “They shouldn’t. I bowed. Wanheda submitted to the Commander. I have no more power; I gave it to you.”

It’s a long time before Lexa answers again.

“It’s not Wanheda they fear,” she says at last. “Though perhaps they don’t realize that fact yet. They fear you, Clarke, because they don’t know what you will do. All of our great leaders grow up learning strategy, practicing simulations, moving troops on a board for years before we do it on the battlefield. But you...if the rules they have spent all their life learning do not suit you, you would flip the board. And that is why you are different from them; that is why they fear you; that is why they’ll try to kill you. And it’s also why you might win.”

“What will you do?”

This answer comes far easier. Lexa shrugs and says, “I swore fealty to you, Clarke. My life is yours.”

The multitude of different responses that spring from her beating heart and her darkened mind and her flipping stomach ball up in her throat, making it impossible to speak. Lexa takes her silence as an answer and, with the muscles in her neck tensing, looks down as Clarke strides ahead.

“I don’t care about my life,” Clarke murmurs. “I haven’t for a long time. So I don’t care that your life is mine. Just make sure my people are protected. They won’t make it through another war. This is the first peace, the first life, they’ve ever known and I went through a hell of a lot to ensure that.”

“Your survival is tied with theirs,” Lexa replies.

Clarke balks, stopping in her tracks; Lexa’s footsteps, a few feet behind her, stop as well, but Clarke looks up at the low underground ceiling instead of turning to meet her eyes.

“Is that a threat? If I die, so do they?”

“No.” Lexa’s voice is soft. “From everything I know and everything I’ve seen, they’ve only survived because of you and your choices and your determination. So you should consider your life important, even if you only do for their survival.”

Clarke turns slowly. She knows, just by her ability to read the lines of her face, that Lexa has so much more she wants to say: but she holds it back, drawing even with Clarke and then stepping past her. When she looks closely, Clarke can see the shadow of guilt across Lexa’s face--and it’s the most satisfying thing she’s seen in weeks. She knows Lexa is bound by politics and her past sins and her own standard of decorum; and still, despite this, Lexa has begun to push the boundaries of what is expected of her in their interactions, like she’s searching. For forgiveness, for balance, for truth.

Which doesn’t really concern Clarke. She’s here for a purpose, and whatever is beginning to awaken inside her again isn’t soft. She has been bloody for too long to concern herself with the nuances of Grounder political life and Lexa’s moods and quiet desires.

“They lived because a lot of other people didn’t,” Clarke says flatly. “Same as everyone else on the ground. It didn’t have anything to do with me.”

“If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have left your people to live on your own, and you wouldn’t feel the way you do now. You have been central to everything since you’ve landed. That’s why you’re here, Clarke. You’re the best leader your people can hope for.”

If Lexa levels one more platitude commending her her leadership ability, Clarke knows she’ll snap--but as soon as she opens her mouth to let her anger flow out and tell Lexa as much, the sound of quick approaching footsteps in the tunnel silences her and, with an automatic, instinctive movement, steps to Lexa’s side to face into the darkness alongside her.

It’s Titus. Preceded by the glow of the torch he carries, he’s even more stern than usual, heightening the skull-like appearance that the dancing flame gives his face.

“I knew when you and Wanheda were both missing, there was only one place you’d be,” he says. “Did the Prince have anything to say?”

“He told Clarke and I that the Queen is most likely posturing, as we suspected.”

“She wouldn’t attack Polis,” Clarke adds.

Titus shakes his head. “Of course not, one clan against the coalition and Polis’s walls isn’t strong enough.” His voice turns grave, low. “But how long will all the clans stand with you, Lexa? The ambassadors are restless. Some are in the city already. They said they would go out to walk the streets, trade at the markets.”

“So they’re hiring runners to go speak to the Ice Nation army,” Lexa surmises.

Clarke frowns. “To cut deals?”

“Not necessarily. They’ll want to know all sides, what the Ice Nation can offer, what I can offer, before making a decision. But if what the Ice Nation offers, or threatens, is greater than what I can tell them...”

“Then the coalition crumbles,” Clarke finishes.

“Then they’ll betray the Commander and the coalition,” Titus corrects her darkly. “This is why you should have ridden out to meet them, Heda. Find out what they want and relay that information to the ambassadors, instead of allowing the ambassadors the opportunity to decide their own fates and conspire against you. They’ll call you coward, call you weak--”

Bristling, Clarke steps forward, putting herself between Titus and Lexa to capture his attention and irritation. “If she’d done that, they would have killed her when she approached. She would have had to bring an entire army with her to match theirs, and it would have started a war.”

“It’s better to keep your enemies in front of you rather than allowing them to stab you in the back,” Titus growls.

“It’s better to not make any enemies in the first place,” Clarke replies, with a quiet, burning edge to her words. “That way you don’t get stabbed at all. You should keep that in mind.”

Lexa’s low growl comes between them, as always. “ _ Enough. _ ” Clarke would love for him to press again, but his loyalty doesn’t allow it. Titus steps back, dipping his head in respect to the Commander. “How many ambassadors left the tower?” she asks quietly.

“Four: Shallow Valley, Rockline, Bright Forest, and Blue Cliff.”

“Can we stop their runners from going to meet the Ice Nation?” Clarke suggests. “No one in or out of the city until we figure out what’s going on. And keep the Ambassadors in the tower, don’t let them make decisions based on fear.”

“Polis is a neutral zone; I protect it and enforce the rules, but I don’t control the citizens, unless we were actually under attack.”

“But--”

“I’m not a dictator, Clarke.”

Of all the times for her morals to emerge. “Then send a runner on my behalf,” Clarke says. “At least then I can tell you what they want.”

“It’s a day’s ride there and a day’s ride back: we won’t have answers before we have to force a decision, but the good thing is that the ambassadors won’t either. I take Roan at his word. They’ve made no move to attack; whether it’s a threat display or military exercises, as he said, they won’t attack yet, not when the coalition is so strong. They’re in place for Nia’s arrival, to enact whatever she decrees following the summit, and to add weight to her negotiating position. But they’re not here to start a war.”

“Yet.”

“It will always threaten,” Lexa says, and the way her jaw works back and forth belies her dismissive tone. “I’ve made my decision. We’ll inform the ambassadors of the situation this evening, before the runners can return. I’ll bring Roan to the throne room to testify to the intentions of the Ice Nation army. Until then...we’ll continue as we were.”

A vei in Titus’s neck bulges with is desire to argue, but the finality of her words stops him. “What would you ask of me, Heda?” he asks, every word clipped with his effort to remain controlled.

“Oversee the ambassadors. Ensure that they know to be in the throne room this evening for my decision. Attempt to dissuade them from leaving the tower, should they try, but do not force them. They’ll know your fear if you do.”

“And what will you do in the meantime then?” Clarke asks her next, with none of Titus’s subservient self-control.

In response, Lexa closes her eyes, inhaling a deep breath, a surprising show of vulnerability after the steel-edged voice in which she delivered her commands. “I have training with the Nightbloods later,” she tells Clarke, “but first...I need to clear my mind. I’m going up to the clearing to train. Titus, if you could escort Clarke to her quarters and send the Nightbloods to me when it’s time.”

Back to the tower. 

It’s a split-second decision.

“Actually, I’d like to go up to the training clearing with you.”

“I--of course.” Lexa frowns, as if there’s a catch, but tries her best to smooth her face after Clarke doesn’t offer one. “Should I send someone for your sketching supplies, so that you can finish the drawings from your room?”

“No, no, that’s fine. I just....need some air too.”

Titus has no objection--no doubt he would like to prevent Clarke from hosting anymore unsanctioned meetings with ambassadors, especially now.

 

*

 

She’s stripped off her ceremonial armor, washed her face of her warpaint; the mask of the commander is designed to make her look mythic and immortal, her eternal gray-green eyes slicing out of the darkness. Without it, Lexa is twenty-one years old, all muscle and sinew and vulnerability, but somehow, with nothing but a sword in her hand and an opponent before her, Lexa looks infinitely more wild, more fierce, more resolute than she ever has. This is her natural element.

And now that she’s in the clearing, just like her warpaint and armor, Lexa has stripped away the expectations that confined her emotions and reaction to being confronted with news of the Ice Nation army. She is no longer the reserved; she releases her fury and attacks the warrior in front of her with everything she has, lashing out with her sword, the metal ringing off the steel of his armor. She demands that he hold nothing back despite her lack of armor; Clarke isn’t sure that he could attack her even if he wanted to.  When he swings for her shoulders, rather than blocking the blow, Lexa smacks the flat of her sword against the leather padding of his hip; when attempts to parry her next attack, she pivots, landing a backhanded slash across his chest and sending him backwards. 

Within minutes, the warrior is doubled over; he drops his sword in surrender. Lexa stands tall over him, catching her breath, and surveys him with a callously raised eyebrow. From her perch on the low perimeter wall, Clarke can tell: Lexa’s not satisfied. The predator that she unleashes only in the training clearing and on the battlefield hasn’t been satiated yet, and since training is such a poor imitation for the bloodlust she needs to quench her anger, she needs much more before she will rest.

“You three,” she calls to the remaining guards, two women and a man. “Select a weapon.”

“All of us at once, Heda?”

Lexa doesn’t answer, having given her instruction once. Clarke smiles slightly. How could they watch her performance and still question whether she could take on three of them?

Once armed, the guards don’t go in overconfident, but it doesn’t matter. They begin the fight with prudence: Lexa punishes that with speed and aggression from the start, with a flurry of blows that send her opponents into a battle haze. She backs off after landing strikes on each of them; they push forward, hard, and for a moment, Clarke worries that she has taken on too much. One warrior strikes Lexa’s shoulder with the blunted sword. Another swings for her head and she manages to duck in time, but that leaves her open to the butt of a spear, catching her in her chest and knocking her back. 

Lexa struggles to regain her balance as they circle in. Clarke watches her face. There’s a savagery to it, but there are flashes of delight as well. She loves this, perhaps even more than she loves winning fights without a scratch.

With an opponent on each side of her and one directly in front of her, Lexa’s gaze swivels back and forth before she makes her decision. She flings herself sideways, attacking the grounder with the spear and getting inside her reach before she can ready herself. She spins past her and shoves her into a second attacker, wrenching the spear out of her grasp. Without stopping, she spins again, swinging the spear at the third warrior and forcing him back; the second he abandons his attacking stance, she drops the spear and flies at him, absorbing one wild swing and driving her knee into his chest. With a grunt, he drops. He tries one last time from his kneeling position on the ground, but Lexa deflects his sword with a lazy flick of her wrist and then it’s done.

Two opponents on the ground, and one disarmed. They give in, dropping into the dirt in exhaustion. And still, Lexa stands tall in the center of the clearing, chest heaving, eyes wild, looking every inch the conqueror who could raze cities and smash armies. The red welts on her arms and back, to be greenish-brown bruises later, don’t seem to faze her.

Slowly, her head turns toward Clarke, as if she’s only just returning to earth and realizing that she has been watched the entire time; Clarke can see the roiling, turbulent emotion slowly bleed out of her. It’s the purest form of therapy: pushing her body to the limit, leaving no room for anything but focus on the task at hand, her heart beating for one purpose and ignoring all else.

And then, without the warning of a smile, she laughs. It’s little more than a chuckle that bubbles up out of her chest, but for how unexpected it is, Lexa may as well have thrown her head back and laughed to the heavens, and Clarke can’t help the smile that it pulls out of her.

“Would anyone like to go again?” Lexa offers, turning back to the warriors but this time with a note of amusement in her voice. It’s a promise of a less punishing round, but even that is not an offer any of her victims are willing to take.

“I’d like to see Wanheda in the training clearing,” one of the guards says, with a smile at Clarke.

“From now on, she will not be referred to as Wanheda unless we are before the full room of ambassadors,” Lexa tells him, voice sharp. But instead of dismissing his suggestion with a casual wave of her hand--as Clarke expects her to--Lexa cocks her head, turning slowly to face Clarke.

“So, Clarke…” There’s an odd twinkle in her eye, the hint of a smile that prevents Clarke from scoffing at the idea as quickly as she wants to. “Would you care to train with us?”

Her immediate response is negative--at least, she wants it to be. “After watching that?” she calls back sarcastically. But it’s not a no. And seeing Lexa standing there like that, cracked open to the world and wild and free, having the weight of all of her responsibilities outside the low walls of the training clearing, Clarke can’t help but glance at the rack of weapons.

A small smile, just for her, breaks over Lexa’s face.

The heavy thump of running footsteps reaches their ears before Clarke can say anything else. Lexa stiffens and grips her practice sword tighter, just as one of her guards from the tower crests the hill and comes into view, breathing hard from the exertion of running.

“Apologies for the interruption, Heda,” he says, “But Queen Nia has arrived.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a candle for Lexa tonight. I hope you enjoy part of my love letter to her.

 

Lexa makes the Azgeda queen wait.

She makes all of them wait.

They wait in the throne room, silent; the glass windows are closed but the curtains have not been drawn, allowing the afternoon sun to blaze through the panes of cracked glass, heating the room until sweat slides down Clarke’s spine and every breath feels harder to exhale. The Ice Nation delegation, the prisoners Lexa had arrested following the revelation of Roan’s plans, especially seems to droop. They’re huddled against one wall, kneeling, shackled, heavy chains weighing them down; beside them are the Boatkru ambassador and her guards, imprisoned since the night of the summit when the assassin attacked.

Between the prisoners, the ambassadors, and the handful of clan leaders who have already arrived with their coterie of attendants and guards, the room is so thick with bodies that they only space between them is the pathway from the entrance up to the throne, cleared for Lexa. But she’s making them wait, leaving them to stew in the heat and the nervous energy in the room.

The minutes tick by.

Ten. Fifteen. Thirty.

Some fidget, fingers itching for weapons that aren’t there. More threatening, however, are the Grounders who stand perfectly still, statues, but for the waves of fury or fear or power they emanate, which only sets everyone on edge even more. Between the morning’s chaos and the palpable friction between the clan leaders in the room now, Clarke half-believes that war could break out in this very room.

And then the guards throw the doors open. In strides The Commander, strong and lean and wearing her finest regalia. The suddenness of her arrival jolts them, but the way she walks between them to her throne stuns them into complete submission: to see something so graceful and fluid after so long held in tense, sweltering purgatory--she’s preternatural.

Hell, Clarke has held her, tasted her, experienced the best and the worst of her most human desires, and yet as she watches Lexa ascend to her throne and lower herself into the seat, she’s not convinced Lexa isn’t some primordial goddess of war. Her power, her grace. She burns like the sun and Clarke’s the only one who doesn’t avert her eyes.

Maybe there’s something to her faith in reincarnation.

There’s not a sound in the room as Lexa regards her subjects. Behind her, two guards push open the huge windows, allowing a rush of cool winter air into the room and lifting the haze, allowing them all to breathe again. With that, a hushed reverence takes the place of the thick tension in the air as they look up at her, waiting.

“Bring her in.”

The scrape of iron on stone greets them first: shackles on the concrete. There could not be a more fitting sound to associate with the woman who steps slowly into the room, the chain around her ankles clanking with every footfall. Nia stands at an imperious six feet tall, with eyes and hair both the color of a cold, steel winter sky. Her face, older than Clarke expected, is thin and drawn, but her body moves with an unassuming power--she both hides and hints at her physical power, in the same way that she hides her metal armor beneath the lush animal pelts she wears, with flashes of it visible only when she moves.

From the stories she’s heard to the ambassadors eager to ally with her to this first vision of her, Clarke understands the way Lexa had instantly gone stone-faced when she heard of Nia’s arrival.

The Queen is walked to the center of the room and pushed to her knees before Lexa’s throne. She looks up, sun shining in her face, but she stares into Lexa’s face without flinching.

“Queen Nia.” There is no hint of reverence in Lexa’s voice, despite the title. In fact, she sounds bored, and the word queen almost falls from her lips derisively, as if it’s nothing compared to Commander, and suddenly the Azgeda Queen seems smaller in Clarke’s eyes.

“Commander.”

Nia has the same tone, but Lexa doesn’t shrink at all.

Lexa doesn’t waste any more time on formalities or intimidation. “I assume your ambassador sent notice to inform you of the events of the summit before he was arrested?”

“Wrongly arrested,” Nia interjects.

“The Ice Nation delegation conspired to assassinate me,” she replies. “What would you deem wrongful about their arrest?”

“I was not aware my son was part of the delegation--he was exiled on your orders and invited into your tower on your orders, not mine.”

She has planned this. Her answers are casual, rehearsed--unbothered. She may as well not be wearing shackles in the first place, for how comfortable she is. Lexa expected as much, and Nia’s nonchalance does not rile her.

“The delegations involvement comes from your son’s own mouth, according to his accuser,” she says, clear and relaxed.

“And that would be?” Nia scoffs.

“Me,” Clarke announces, raising her chin.

She wants to throw Nia off, break her out of the planned speech, and she does. Nia and Lexa both turn to Clarke with surprise coloring their faces. Clarke stays motionless and icy cold under Nia’s glare, and while Lexa shifts back to her former repose, Nia doesn’t look away.

“Prince Roan attempted to include Clarke of the Sky People in the delegation’s plans,” Lexa explains, trying to regain Nia’s attention. Queen Nia stays focused on Clarke, studying the unexpected element that has turned the situation. “Wanheda brought them to me instead of siding with an exiled traitor.”

Nia recovers  herself, shaky only while she adjusts. “Well. Good to know that the notion of loyalty to one’s alliances is not lost to all of our leaders.” She spits the end of it with particular venom. The ambassadors around the throne room ripple with discomfort at the mention of Lexa’s betrayal, and Lexa herself clenches her jaw.

“Prince Roan has been exiled,” Nia continues. “He has no claim or power in the Ice Nation, so therefore, his actions are his own. As for the other traitors…” She glances over the Ice Nation delegation, emotionless, then waves a hand.

“Execute them all.”

The ripple of discomfort grows to a wave of shock rushes through the room; the imprisoned Ice Nation ambassador and guards release fearful exclamations, clearly expecting sanctuary with the arrival of their leader, and the other leaders, ambassadors, and warriors around the room turn to each other to try to reconcile Nia’s declaration: she has at once declared them guilty and separated herself from Roan and the accused conspirators.

Lexa holds up a hand and the room is instantly silent.

“I appreciate your leave to execute my would-be assassins,” she drawls, bored, “but we both know that’s not the reason I requested your presence here. To my original question: you obviously know of the events that occurred at the summit. The Boatkru assassin and the attempt on Wanheda’s life.”

“Yes, and there was no need for my ambassadors to inform me of the assassination attempt: my warriors had heard whisperings already.”

“You knew?” This time it’s Titus’s voice booming to the ceiling. “You knew and you didn’t come forward?”

“I sent one of my best warriors,” she says. “Echo was stopped at the gate, her claims ignored. She had to recruit Sky People warriors in order to storm the summit and interrupt the assassination, while the Commander sat in her tower, oblivious to the threat my warriors knew about it. The entire coalition is well aware of your weakness, Heda.”

A muscle pulses in Lexa’s jaw and Clarke thinks, for a moment, that Lexa glances to her. It was too fast to tell.

“My weakness?” she asks tightly.

“Your desire to avoid bloodshed makes you weak,” Nia says, lips curling with her derision. “Traitors openly conspire against you, and you have no idea. And even when you are told by an ally what happened, the traitors end up kneeling here, still alive, still in your presence, prisoners--they should have lost their lives the moment the treason was discovered.” Nia rises to her feet as she strengthens her speech; Lexa’s personal guards jump forward, but Lexa stops them with a wave of her hand.

Nia speaks to Lexa, but the words are for the rest of the ambassadors. “The Boatkru assassin who attacked at the summit was also to be kept prisoner--it was Skaikru who executed her instead. The leader of the assassin’s tribe should have been taken forcibly from her domain out on the water, but instead you sit in your tower and wait patiently for Luna to respond to your request. You bowed to the strength of our enemies in the mountain, you betrayed your allies, and cut deals with the rats beneath the ground--and again, it was Skaikru who defeated our enemies for us after you put us all at risk by leaving them alive…”

She pulls herself to her full height for one last damning proclamation: “You. Are. _Weak_.”

Nia’s rebellion has piqued the interest of all in the room and Clarke can see flashes of that rebellion reflected in their faces where previously there was reverence: they look to Lexa with new hostility, hounds that have caught the scent of blood. They won’t outright rebel--Lexa still commands too much power--but the energy in the room has shifted, and Clarke’s heart begins to beat faster. If anything goes wrong, could she get to her room and her hidden gun? Where would Lexa go? Clarke looks at the exits, plans her possible routes; she settles on one that takes her to the throne first.

Lexa, on the other hand, keeps her gaze steady on Nia’s face; she sits perfectly still until the discontent in the room begins to quiet.

“You would do well to remember that you are alive purely because of my unwillingness to shed the blood of innocent people, your people,” Lexa says, slowly, but gaining speed and power. “I had warriors in every city, every village. My armies choked the mountain passes. I could have starved you out. I could have burned your capital to the ground. I could have stained the glaciers with so much blood that they would have stayed red for decades. I could have met you sword to sword at the head of a column of soldiers who outnumbered your people three to one. And yet I let you live; your civilians didn’t suffer.”

Lexa keeps Clarke riveted, keeps every eye in the room on her--until a quiet, dirisive snort from Roan attracts Clarke’s attention. His glare has darkened, hate etched in his face as he watches her.

Lexa ignores him, as do the rest of those in attendance. The battle between Lexa and Nia could mean the difference between war and peace.

“If mercy makes me weak,” Lexa finishes, the edges of her words curling as they burn with her fury, “what does that make you, who lives only because I _allowed_ it?”

There is a stunned silence, and no one is more shocked than Clarke. She’s never seen Lexa like this. And despite that, it’s as if Nia hasn’t even heard her: she raises her chin, haughty.

“You were not the greatest threat I have ever faced, nor will you be. I am still alive because I lead my people with a force and strength you are incapable of.”

“Watch your tongue,” Lexa snarls, low and dangerous.

“Or you’ll take me prisoner?” Nia mocks, with a laugh. “Prove your strength, Heda. I call for a vote of no confidence.”

Titus roars something, but it’s drowned out by the loud, raucous chorus of agreement from the ambassadors and leaders, so aggressive that Clarke’s heart sinks even further, even as it hammers against her chest. One by one, the ambassadors and leaders rise to their feet, repeating the same words:

_“Aye. No confidence.”_

Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. It’s a vote, and it’s unanimous. Almost.

“Lexa, what is this?” Clarke demands.

Lexa grips the arms of her throne with white knuckles, pure fury in her eyes. She doesn’t look away from Nia as she answers.

“This is a coup.”

But Nia, emboldened by the support of the ambassadors, turns to Clarke with a triumphant smile. “By Lexa’s own laws, if a challenger is supported by a majority of ambassadors, the Heda must prove her capability in single combat, to submission or death, against the challenger. Or her champion.”

“I don’t accept that, I’m not standing with you,” Clarke protests. “Skaikru stands with Lexa.”

Behind her, Boone, the ambassador who had suggested an alliance, raises his chin. Clarke ignores him.

“You’re not recognized as part of the coalition, but it doesn’t matter,” Nia says, with all the confidence of someone who has already won this battle. “All it takes is a majority to challenge the throne.”

“Do you recall that the loser of the challenge is put to death, Nia?” Lexa asks.

“I would gladly die for the chance to ensure that my people are protected by someone with the strength to actually protect them--would you?”

Lexa’s eyes flick to Clarke

“I would. I accept your challenge.” The ambassadors and leaders immediately begin muttering to each other. Lexa raises her voice. “Name your champion.”

Nia’s answer is automatic. “My son Roan will fight for me.”

Roan turns slowly from Lexa to Nia; his hard glare previously directed at the Commander doesn’t drop as he regards his mother with contempt.

“And you, Commander?” Nia asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Commander, please,” Titus begins, because he can see, as Clarke can, where this is ending. They can see that Nia’s plan was only ever ending one way.

Still, Lexa says it, with a raised chin and straight shoulders.

“I am the Commander. No one fights for me.”

 

*

 

A half hour later, storming down the hallway, Clarke catches a half glimpse of a guard reaching out to stop her before she shoves through the double doors to Lexa’s quarters.

“This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” she announces.

Lexa, standing in close conversation with Titus in the center of the room, turns slowly. She takes in Clarke and all of her outrage, but instead of responding, she looks instead to the guard behind her, who stands in the open doorway at a loss. She gives him a small nod.

“Clarke, are you aware that my warriors have begun to hold daily meetings about how to combat your penchant for storming past them and barging through doors unannounced? They are so unaccustomed to your behavior that they have no way of stopping it.”

There’s a subtle hint of amusement in her tone, so quiet that even Clarke barely registers it, but she ignores it.

“Enough with the calmness,” she snaps. “Why the fuck would you accept her challenge?”

Lexa glances at Titus, who is red-faced with the same outrage that Clarke has. “The quickest way to peace is to put down those who want otherwise,” she tells them both.

“Then _execute_ her for her insolence,” Titus pleads. “Don’t--”

“I will execute her,” Lexa replies, “following the fight. If it’s not done right, I’m nothing more than a dictator, executing anyone who objects to my decisions. As it stands, you are lucky this is not standard policy, Titus.”

Reminded of his status of subordinate to the Commander, Titus falls into a stern, angry silence. Clarke, regardless of bowing or public appearance, does not have such status; she stomps forward and gets within inches of Lexa’s face, so forceful that the other woman blinks and almost steps back.

“That doesn’t matter, Lexa,” Clarke hisses. “It doesn’t matter if you achieve peace the right way or the wrong way, as long as you achieve peace. It doesn’t matter if you’re a dictator or a beloved leader, as long as your people are protected. You said you would protect my people--you can’t do that if you’re dead.”

“I could die,” Lexa says, nodding. “But that won’t mean the end of the protection of our people. One of my Nightbloods will succeed me, and he or she will honor all promises I have made.”

Clarke scoffs. “Your Nightbloods? You mean those kids?”

“Heda was just slightly older than Aden when she took up command,” Titus says quietly.

_“I don’t care,”_ Clarke tells him. “If she dies…”

The words stick in her throat, jumbling until she can’t get them out. She clenches her jaw and narrows her eyes, then turns on her heel and storms out of Lexa’s quarters.

 

*

 

The fight between Lexa and Roan is set for two days later. For the entirety of the first day, Clarke resorts to her old standby of refusing to see Lexa, taking the up familiar perch on her balcony, looking out to the horizon and planning a way out for hours on end.

Only, before, she was planning a physical escape from the tower. From Polis. From Lexa.

Now, however, Clarke plans an escape clause, a way out of this fight. For both of them. In between bouts of fuming over Lexa’s stubbornness and her refusal to abandon tradition or decorum, Clarke considers forcing the fight to be postponed until after the Boat People leader arrives, in the hopes that any trial or punishment for the assassination attempt would eclipse the fight and render it unnecessary. Or perhaps the leader won’t show up at all, forcing Lexa to leave Polis to go roust her from wherever the Boat People call home.

That would be the ideal situation, for Clarke. Both of them leaving Polis. She is too far above the city to see individual bodies in the streets below, but there is a tightening about the city. A constriction. She can feel the growing presence of Ice Nation guards in the hallways and she can imagine them down on the city streets; the guards and contingents of other clans have begin to fill the streets as well, and she can only imagine that in such an environment, with so many enemies so close, rumors and conspiracy spread like a plague that could crater the people’s support of their commander.

In her time on the ground, Clarke has developed a compulsive need to know every exit and escape route. But now, they’re beginning to be cut off, one by one.

But regardless, every possible plan that Clarke comes up with continues to turn her thoughts back to the prospect of the fight, and what happens if Lexa falls. Clarke had seen the ferocity with which Roan had fought when he brought her to Polis. She’s seen Lexa fight as well, but in training, with blunted swords, and guards who don’t truly want to kill her even if she asks that they pretend to. Roan will want to kill her.

The thought makes her stomach turn. And she can’t escape it, no matter how hard she tries.

She did not come all this way and do what she’s done just to lose it all to Roan’s sword.

A knock at the door interrupts her ruminations. She ignores it, at first, knowing exactly who it will be, but when it comes again, Clarke has to turn.

“Veron, who is it?” she calls to her guard from the balcony.

“The Comman--”

“I don’t want to see her.”

“--the Commander’s Flamekeeper,” he finishes.

Clarke rolls her eyes to fight off the feeling of her burning cheeks. She wants to see Titus even less than she wants to see Lexa, but he knocks again--Lexa has only ever knocked once before being told to leave, and she hasn’t pressed the issue. Clarke gets the feeling that Titus won’t be as courteous, so she stomps across the room, swings open the door, and turns on her charm.

“The hell do you want?” she grunts.

Titus stares coldly. “We need to speak about the Commander and the fight.”

He doesn’t want to be here, that much is clear. If he is, he must have a reason. Clarke stands aside.

“You need to convince Lexa not to fight,” Titus mutters when the door shuts behind him.

“Isn’t that your job? _Keeping the flame_ , keeping her alive?”

“Lexa has made that job more difficult than any other Commander before her,” Titus says. “She is intent on breaking with tradition, intent on inviting enemies to eat at her table, intent on spilling as little blood as possible even if it means her own will drain from her.”

Something Clarke has been well aware of for a few months now. “If I had any control over that, she would have been with me inside Mount Weather. I can’t talk her out of this any more than you can.”

“You don’t understand--”

“I don’t care to,” Clarke retorts. She won’t listen to him blather about his responsibilities, she has more important things to think about. She marches back to the door as she gives her ultimatum. “Lexa can’t die because if she dies, so do my people; I don’t care about understanding her feelings about leadership beyond that. My concern lies with them, not her.”

Titus doesn’t move. “Do you know why Prince Roan was exiled?” he asks.

Clarke simply glares in response. If words aren’t getting through, that’s her next tactic.

“He was exiled because he was the one who swung the sword to behead the woman Lexa loved, on his mother’s orders.”

“Costia.”

She heard that name once, and she hasn’t forgotten it. It echoed in her thoughts when Roan had captured her and it reverberated in the air in the throne room during Lexa and Nia’s challenge.

“She told you?” Titus asks, eyebrows raising.

“I had just lost someone,” Clarke says. “She was trying to comfort me...I think.”

“Then you know that Nia tortured her, killed her,” Titus says. “And you must know the pain of it. Costia and Lexa had grown up together, Costia the daughter of a Trikru warrior and Lexa a Nightblood. They sparred, they learned to ride, they explored the mountains together. When Lexa came to Polis, so did Costia. When Lexa ascended, Costia took up residence as the guard of the Trikru Ambassador. And when Lexa was trying to pull together the Coalition, and the Ice Nation decided to attack...Costia went to war.”

Titus pauses there, voice halting. He looks at the ground and Clarke frowns when she sees the lines of distress on his face.

“She didn’t come back,” he finishes.

“You knew her?” she asks, more tenderly than she had expected.

“I did. I mourned for her, but I mourn even now for what it did to Lexa. Something broke within her that day. The Coalition was nascent, hardly stable, and yet she took them to war. She united eleven clans against one and marched them into the Ice Nation in the middle of winter, drove them forward relentlessly. I’d never seen anything like it. She would have ripped Nia’s throat out with her fingers if she could...but when faced with Lexa’s army, Nia kneeled rather than see the Ice Nation wiped from the earth. And Lexa realized how far she had come and how close she had come to going over the edge, becoming a monster.”

Familiarity stirs within Clarke, an old memory she had blocked out taking shape in her mind. The words aren’t hers when they come out, but she knows them almost too well. “She thought she’d never get over the pain...and she tried to burn down everything to get away from it. But she recognized it for what it was.”

“Weakness,” Titus confirms. “She lost Costia, and because she lost Costia, she nearly threw away everything else. That’s why she clings so tightly to the coalition now: she relinquished her desire to avenge Costia for it. She dragged herself out of the dark with it. She won’t let that go to waste by becoming a dictator. She’ll die for it before that happens, or before it falls.”

Clarke is struck by her desire to hear all of this from Lexa. Not that she needs it confirmed--but for some reason, she wants Lexa to be the one to peel back her own armor and reveal herself.

But that is secondary; she commits herself to the actual problem at hand: “I’d rather see Nia die,” she says, and Titus nods, relieved to have succeeded. “Can you get me down to talk to Roan?”

 

*

 

Titus gives her an armored jacket to wear; he won’t allow her out of the room unless she pulls the hood up to hide her hair, and he won’t allow her down the hallway unless she marches between two armed Trikru guards. She acquiesces to every ridiculous demand. Out of character for her, but she’s planning an escape route from the upcoming flight, and she has no energy to oppose him.

Her plan is half-formed by the time she hits the ground floor of the tower. She likes to know her prey better before she works with them, manipulates them, but Roan is training right outside and there’s no time to ponder. She marches to him from behind; he hears her step, whirls with his sword, and stops it an inch from her neck.

“What do you want?” he growls.

“I want your help.”

“ _Wanheda_ wants my help?”

“You’re right,” Clarke says, pivoting. “I don’t want your help. I want to help you, instead.”

He lowers his sword, open to it.

“I don’t want to see you die. I--”

“I won’t,” Roan says, and the sword comes right back up. The Trikru warriors grunt, but they all know he’s not bold enough to try anything. It’s an intimidation tactic, nothing more, and Clarke is so far beyond being intimidated.

“You don’t stand a chance. I’ve seen Lexa fight for real,” she lies.

“So have I,” Roan shoots back. When Clarke frowns, he adds, “Did you believe her when she said she stopped her armies short of bloodshed in the Ice Nation? A political spin my mother would have been proud of, under different circumstances. But regardless, I’ve seen her fight. And I know I can win.”

It shakes her for a half second; not that she’s above war, but the image of Lexa deepens, drews her in. Seeing her reaction and satisfied with it, Roan drops his sword and turns his back on her, stalking toward the center of the square to continue training. Undeterred, however, Clarke follows him.

“Why were you exiled?” she asks.

“Because your bitch of a Commander demanded it as part of my clan’s surrender terms.”

“Why did she demand it?”

“Because I was the one to execute Costia.”

Clarke knows this; she doesn’t flinch at Roan’s dismissive attitude toward the execution, but instead, reacts with fake surprise and curiosity. “So you hate her for exiling you for something outside of your control, and yet...you agreed to bring me safely to Polis? Why wouldn’t you help your mother start a war, bring me to her?”

“I don’t want war, Wanheda,” Roan says, frustrated. “I want to go _home._ To return to the Ice Nation in times of peace, that’s all I’ve wanted. The politics of this place don’t interest me. My people, my home, my life does.”

Clarke nods, considers. That was the answer she was hoping for. “In that case...why risk losing a fight to Lexa when you can return to the Ice Nation as a king by this time next week?”

A hiss from the Trikru guard behind her. “Speak softly, Clarke.”

But she doesn’t need to--Roan is the only Ice Nation warrior in the square, watched carefully by Lexa’s royal guard and Clarke’s Trikru escort. And beside that, assassination attempts have begun to happen so frequently they’re as unremarkable as Lexa’s war councils.

Accordingly, Roan turns, with a smirk on his face. “My mother wouldn’t even barter for my freedom, and she willingly sent me into exile to comply with Lexa’s demands. She’d never abdicate and she would never crown me.”

“Well, not while she’s alive, at least.” Clarke shrugs. “You’re next in line for the throne, aren’t you?”

Roan sizes her up, considering the offer; Clarke stares him down to assure him of her understanding of the gravity of her words. “The interest in regicide would have been appreciated back when I asked you to kill Lexa,” he says.

“I’ve turned over a new leaf.”

“You’re _scared_ ,” he corrects. “Scared I’ll beat her. That I’ll kill her.”

“I don’t care about her,” Clarke replies coolly. “But having her--and you--in power, serves my people better. Given everything I’ve heard about your mother. Think about it, Roan,” she presses, when he doesn’t fire back a sharp reply. “You can go home. You can rule over your people. Peacefully. You can trade. We can end the war. You can put down your sword, send an ambassador to Polis, and eat food that someone else catches and prepares for you for the rest of your life. Your _long_ life.”

He studies her for a long time.

 

*

 

Reaching into her pocket, Clarke clutches the small bottle Roan gave her after his training. She makes sure it’s still there, makes sure that the stopper hasn’t slipped out. Her heart hammers; she would much rather face down Roan with two guards at her back and an unrefusable offer, than she would like to face the Azgeda queen with a poisoned knife.

“It’s slow acting,” Roan had told her. “You’ll be far away and back in Lexa’s safety by the time there’s any effect on my mother.”

“Any antidote?” she asks.

“It’s like you fell from the sky yesterday,” he growls. “You don’t carry a poison around without an antidote, Clarke. Of course I have one. But I’m probably the only person who does. Both the poison and the antidote are created from plants found far west of here. No one who would want to help my mother would have it.”

And now, the poison he had given her is smeared on the wrist of her jacket, the dark stain barely visible against the dark, aged fabric.

The Ice Nation delegation is quartered twelve levels below Lexa and Clarke’s top level rooms in the Commander’s Tower, saving her from having to travel down the well-guarded halls and arouse suspicions among Lexa’s personal guards or the other ambassadors flitting in and out of the war room.

Two Ice Nation guards flank the door at the end of the hall. They’re weaponless, as is required in the city, but their size and the menace in their face renders an edged weapon unnecessary: they could rip her apart barehanded, if they wanted. And they let her know that, silently, as she walks toward them.

“I have a deal to make with Nia,” Clarke says, well before she’s within their reach.

“The queen is not taking visitors.”

“Her son sent me.”

The guard stares, impassive.

“Nia!” Clarke shouts through the door.

Both guards drop into a defensive stance but Clarke holds firm, though her beating heart belies her cool resolve. But before the two men can do anything, a cold, clear voice blows out from the room.

“Let her through.”

Instantly, faster even than Lexa’s guards are to reply to her orders, the Ice Nation warriors leap to attention and open the double doors for Clarke. Their automatic movements are almost fearful; unlike with Lexa, whose closed door Clarke will stride through any time without fear, there is a viper waiting on the other side of this door, as likely to kill the guards as she is to kill Clarke.

Clarke strides through the doors anyway.

Unlike the space at the top of the tower, the Ice Nation quarters are not much lived in. They maintain an ambassador and only a small contingent of guards year round in Polis, so the furniture is spare, austere, lacking in the warmth and decor of Lexa’s top level chambers. When Clarke sees the slim mattress and thin furs provided for bedding, she understands the own luxury in which she previously thought she was imprisoned.

Nia fits the sparse room well, though. Her cold, drawn face and grey eyes, fixed on Clarke now, would look out of place in the warmth of some other room. She and her single guard are the only two people in the room; the guard, dark-haired and younger and Clarke, lurks in the shadows behind Nia’s chair.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Nia asks, voice like the smooth blade of a knife.

“What if I changed my vote about the Commander?” Clarke offers.

Nia smiles. “Now you’re thinking like a real leader.”

“I’d like some assurances first.”

“Naturally. The Sky People will be safe, I promise. I have no desire for war--just stability and the protection of my people.”

“As do I.” Clarke continues her slow step around the table; where her heart was pounding seconds before, the gravity of what she’s doing has slowed it, made it alarmingly easy to step into the guise of assassin. “And my safety?”

“I have no quarrel with you,” Nia says, rising to meet Clarke. “Just with Lexa. Once she’s removed as Commander, I’ll have no need of Wanheda.”

“Okay, then,” Clarke says with a nod. She draws a knife from her pocket--the same knife Roan gave her days ago, the knife she was supposed to use to kill Lexa. She presses the point against the palm of her hand. “Once she’s gone, I’d like to go after the Boatkru assassin who tried to kill me on the night of the summit.”

“Of course,” Nia agrees. With a hungry eye, she watches Clarke pierce her own skin. “You’ve learned our customs.”

Without reply, Clarke wipes the blade across the dark patch of poison on her sleeve. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Nia’s guard shift. Clarke keeps her gaze straight ahead, flips the knife, and offers the grip to Nia.

“For the coalition,” Nia says, mockingly, as she places the knife against her palm.

“Wait!”

It’s the guard--Clarke barely registers her voice before she’s seized from behind and flung through the air, landing hard on her back on the table. The air in her lungs rushes out and she’s no match for the guard as the she wrenches Clarke’s arm out of position to examine her sleeve. A heartbeat that had previously steadied in her chest now triples in speed, a hummingbird desperate to escape its cage, and she envisions the knife flashing across her throat.

Instead, comes Nia’s laugh, barely audible over the roar of blood in her ears. “Did you think it would be that simple, Clarke?” she asks. Handing the knife to her guard, she draws another from the table of food. “Ontari, show her.”

The girl, Ontari, pins Clarke to the table with one hand and offers her other hand to Nia. Nia cuts into her palm; Ontari doesn’t react, as if she didn’t feel it. A moment later, a viscous black liquid seeps down from her palm.

“I have my own Nightblood,” Nia gloats. “She will take command of the Coalition when Lexa is dead. We could have been allies, Clarke. Instead, you will forever be an enemy of the Ice Nation, and soon you will join Lexa in death.”

Ontari holds her hand over Clarke’s face, letting the blood drip down.

“Take her to the Commander.”

 

*

 

Ontari says not a word for the eleven flights of stairs to Lexa’s chambers, and Clarke does not bother trying to coax anything out of her. Something is wrong with Ontari. Something dark, and deep, and twisted. Something far worse than blackened blood. She holds Clarke in an iron grip and drags her across the floor when Clarke’s feet do not move fast enough.

The guards at Lexa’s throne room instantly jump to defense when they see Ontari pulling Clarke down the hallway. But a shake of Clarke’s head gets them to stand down and allow Ontari through the doors into Lexa’s throne room, but they follow the pair in, weapons at the ready. Lexa and Titus stand at the front of a group of Nightblood novitiates.

It’s Lexa’s reaction that Clarke dreads most, and for good reason: Lexa’s eyes go wide and the way she jumps to her feet is borne of visceral, violent fear--a fighting instinct becoming of a warrior, not a Commander. Titus arrives at her side too late to stop her. Her hand flies to her shoulder, where her sword would be, if she were carrying one, but as soon as the red-hot fear fades and she realizes where she is, she drops her hand to the side. It was a twitch, nothing more, her smooth face says. But Clarke knows her well enough to see the strain in her jaw and the beating pulse in her neck and know what that means. She prays Lexa won’t be baited into anything.

“Would you like your assassin back, Heda?” Ontari calls.

“Would you like yours? The only assassins I’m aware of are the Ice Nation conspirators currently imprisoned beneath the tower,” Lexa replies coldly, clocking the situation immediately. Hot shame fills Clarke.

Shaking her head, Ontari shoves Clarke to the floor. “I would imagine that if the Commander’s pet carries a hidden blade to levy against the Queen, she must get the audacity from the Commander herself, despite the Commander’s own laws.”

She flings Clarke’s knife to the ground as Clarke pulls herself back up. The sound of metal on stone rings around the nearly empty throne room. Titus, Lexa, and a few nightbloods, the only ones present, stare at the blade for a long moment; when Titus opens his mouth to speak, Lexa raises a hand.

“It’s an Ice Nation blade,” Lexa notes coolly. “Surely, Wanheda was merely doing the courtesy of returning it to the traitors who broke coalition law in the first place, by bringing a blade into the city.”

Ontari darkens at Lexa’s nonchalant defense, and darkens even more when she realizes she’s powerless to rebuke Lexa, with no ambassadors in the room to present her case to.

“Keeping the city weapons-free is a bold move, Commander,” Ontari says, narrowing her eyes. “It leaves you open; vulnerable. You--and all your loyal dogs--would do well to remember that.”

Lexa’s smooth face gives no reaction, but the way she rises to her feet and stands a hundred feet tall says everything. Ontari holds her ground, but it’s really the most she can do as Lexa steps down from the dias of her throne, each step full of intention and menace. She draws within inches of Ontari--so close that Ontari could pull a blade on her, but the girl doesn’t dare move.

“I’m aware you were hidden away the last time I marched North and therefore did not see what happened, but you should ask for the stories,” Lexa breathes. “Then maybe you’ll understand that I don’t need a weapon to kill you, Ontari. You would do well to remember that--and to remind your owner of the same, next time you settle at her feet for her command.”

She doesn’t wait for Ontari’s response; she doesn’t have to. Satisfied with her own threat, Lexa turns and strides back to her her throne.

“When Roan wins tomorrow, Clarke will be executed as a potential assassin,” Ontari calls after her. Lexa flinches, as if it were a physical blow to her back. “Her people will be slaughtered, and your legacy of peace will be stained with their blood.”

After a pause, in which Lexa’s muscles stiffen and her body seems to revolt against her willpower, Lexa continues walking back to her throne.

By the time she is seated again, Ontari is gone.

 

*

 

“Out.” Lexa’s voice has not warmed in Ontari’s absence. If anything, it has darkened, with her mood.

The guards protest.

“Out,” she repeats, dangerous. “Everyone, out. Except for Titus and Clarke.”

The Nightblood’s steal glances at Clarke with wide, nervous eyes as they file out; the guards stomp out with much more reluctance. As Clarke stands alone in the center of the throne room, Titus keeps his back to the proceedings, but for once, it’s not him she’s concerned with. It’s her.

Lexa’s fury is barely contained. Her breathing comes hard and deep in her attempts to maintain her composure as she slowly stands from her throne and takes each deliberate step down to Clarke’s eye level.

“Do you…” and she has to pause, because emotion threatens to boil over. “Do you understand the lengths I’ve gone to avoid war, Clarke?”

The click of Clarke’s name on her tongue is sharp and unforgiving.

“Do you recognize the precipice our people are on right now?” she continues. “We’re on the brink of war, Clarke, and all because I refuse to take my people into battle against yours. I have ambassadors crying for retribution, for me to take the my forces to rival Nia, or Luna, or the Sky People. I have calmed disquiet about assassins from two different clans. I am going to fight Roan tomorrow, in a fight that will determine the fate of the coalition--all for you, and the Sky People.”

Clarke stares at her, knowing, that she deserves every second of this. At long last.

“How _dare_ you jeopardize that,” Lexa breathes. “It is no longer your place to sacrifice yourself and start wars for me. I am the Commander. I fight for the Coalition. No one fights for me.”

That sinks deeper than anything else; Clarke’s eyelids flutter shut, anything to get the searing image of Lexa’s face out of her mind. The anger, the fear--the disappointment.

“I had to do it,” Clarke replies, voice hoarse.

“You had to try to assassinate the Queen of the Ice Nation?” Lexa demands, exasperated, as if it’s the most ludicrous thing she’s ever heard. “For what, Clarke? Why would you even try that?

“Because if she takes over the coalition, my people will die!” Clarke protests.

“She will never touch the coalition,” Lexa replies. “Your people will be safe no matter what happens to me. Aden, who will be my successor, has sworn it.”

“Your successor? Ontari has it--the black blood--as well! She’s a nightblood too, Nia said she’ll take command! What’s to stop her from becoming your successor?”

“ _My_ Nightbloods--”

“Clarke is right,” Titus mutters. “This is Nia’s play. Destabilize the coalition and install Ontari. And if she installs Ontari...Clarke will be executed. Her people slaughtered.”

The muscle in Lexa’s jaw pulses with her struggle to maintain control. “My spirit will choose Aden,” Lexa says, sounding more confident than she looks. “He’s even better than I was at his age. Should I die tomorrow, Clarke, he’ll be your new commander and will honor my vows to you.”

She has an answer for everything, she’s thought of every outcome, she’s planned for her own death, she’s ensured the protection and peace will endure.. _.but it’s not enough._ Two months ago, trying to keep warm in the forest on a freezing night when she hadn’t eaten in two days, Clarke told herself that she would step over Lexa’s lifeless body if she found it laying in the dirt. Now...every atom of her body rebels, violently, against the very thought of seeing her laying in the square tomorrow. She turns that rejection on Lexa, bares her teeth and lets it soak through her words.

“I won’t watch you die,” she says, and what seems like an ultimatum comes out like a plea. “Don’t do this.”

There’s a bitter resignation in Lexa’s face: the look of someone who has everything she has ever wanted within reach, and is being pulled back just before she makes contact. She raises her chin and masks it as best she can, but it rings through in her words.

“If death is my fate, so be it,” she says softly. “I will be sorry not to see you at the fight tomorrow.”

With that, she strides past Clarke, beckoning Titus with her out of the room, and leaving Clarke standing by herself.

 

*

 

Clarke doesn’t eat that night. She doesn’t sleep; it’s impossible when she must mentally explore every possible course of action, searching for the one among hundreds that ends in Lexa alive without having to fight. If she knew more of Grounder culture, maybe, but her helplessness is only increased by the realization that she is alone in this alien new culture. She didn’t even know about the black blood until six hours ago, and she still can’t wrap her mind around it.

And so she lays in her bed, among plush furs gifted to her, and stares at the ceiling, hunger and fear and nausea gnawing at her stomach. Nights before this seemed to stretch for eternities as she planned her first day of freedom, and now, dawn comes traitorously early.

The grey light rouses Clarke from her zombie state. Wrapping herself in furs against the cold winter morning air, she slips out onto her balcony. All else is lost, but she won’t go to the fight. She won’t watch Lexa die.

The city awakens below her and around her. First lit torches in the streets, then the golden glow of dawn begins to pull the earliest of risers out of their homes, and then the first few cries in the market rise up to her. In the tower behind her, the pounding of footsteps up and down the hallways began long before the sun rose. Clarke can hear water in the pipes, the grind of small dumbwaiters, calls of handmaids and guards as they go about their early duties.

Everything seems louder today, though, and more urgent. More official. There is nothing like a fight to the death and a possible regime change to ensure that every servant is at their best.

Clarke hates it.

She doesn’t move from her perch on the balcony. She ignores breakfast, knocks at her door, even offers of a bath from the handmaidens. Then, at around noon, the war drums begin.

She hates herself even more.

The war drums beat deep in her bones as she rushes back into her bedroom. Boots and a jacket--she doesn’t even stop to put them on, instead pulling her clothes on as she rushes for the door and down the hall.

She doesn’t have a plan, but she won’t watch Lexa die, because no matter what happens, she won’t let her die.

The gun tucked into the waistband of her pants promises that.

 

*

 

The drum beats sound so thick and fast that they produce almost a deep, agitated buzzing, matched in furor by the press and roar of the crowd that has gathered around the central square at the base of the tower. At the front of the crowd, Clarke can see a crudely erected stage of sorts, with twelve ambassadors or clan leaders seated in double rows of six on either side of an empty throne. Titus lurks between the rows, looking, even from the distance Clarke is at, haggard and anxious.

“The goal is submission,” Titus announces to the crowd, voice wavering. “Submission through surrender...or death. Combatants must die in the arena; no poisons or oils may be used. Combatants...present your weapons for cleaning before the fight.”

Clarke throws caution to the wind, no longer caring about being recognized. She shoves her way through the crowd, elbowing where necessary, until at last, she nearly tumbles out of the crowd into the arena.

And nearly right into Lexa’s arms.

Handing her sword to a tower guard, the Commander stops short, lips parting with surprise and the dark shadow of her scowl lifting when she sees Clarke before her. And something like surprise washes over Clarke, too, temporarily eclipsing her desperation and fear; she has spent so many hours imagining Lexa _dead_ that seeing her alive and warm in front of her feels like coming home, like finally realizing a dream that has eluded her for years. For the first time in months, she feels as alive as Lexa looks now.

She can’t lose that feeling. And she can’t articulate what the feeling means to her. But Lexa seems to understand.

“I’m glad you came,” Lexa murmurs.

Clarke nods. “Me too.”

The guard offers Lexa’s blade back so that the fight can begin. Lexa reaches for it, gaze still locked on Clarke, and Clarke would be content to hold that gaze for hours--but a flash of movement over Lexa’s shoulder startles her back. Roan rushes forward, and only Clarke’s startled gasp alerts Lexa--she leaps aside as Roan’s sword cuts through the air where she had been a heartbeat before.

Lexa lands a gash across his non-sword arm as she spins away, and the fight begins in earnest; Clarke realizes that despite the ferocity that she had seen in Lexa during her training fights in the clearing, it’s nothing compared to her savagery of a real fight. Lexa presses Roan hard, hacking and slashing and using her speed to her advantage so that the moment Roan pushes back, swinging hard at her, she’s already shifted out of that position and attacking the weak point in his defense.

But he defends well, using his weight and strength to hold her off so that Lexa’s attacks do little damage. Then, when he has the measure of her, he blocks and overhead swing and puts his weight behind his sword, driving it down the length of her blade and locking their swords togethr. He presses forward, hard, bending her beneath his weight. Slowly, he angles his arm; his sword, horizontal across her face, draws closer and closer to her cheek.

Clarke’s heart is in her throat. The cold steel of the gun in her waistband presses hard against her back. She glances at Nia, wholly engrossed in the fight. Everyone is. Clarke could get a shot off and escape in the chaos before anyone knew what had happened…

Lexa is about to snap under Roan’s weight--at the last second, she gives up the strength of two hands on her sword, letting go with one hand and using it to grip Roan’s blade. Even from this distance, the sight of black blood dripping onto the ground makes Clarke sick.

With everything she has, Lexa shoves upward and smashes the hilt of Roan’s sword into his face, freeing herself from the deadlock. She dances back--now Roan is on the offensive, chasing her, slashing and swinging as Lexa ducks and steps out of reach of his longsword. But there’s only so far she can go; with her back against the crowd, she’s forced to engage with Roan again, and this time, he attacks with both sword and clenched fist, so that she can duck the blade but catches the weight of his punch square in her cheek. The force of the blow knocks her sideways and he follows with a knee into her back.

Lexa drops to her knees. She manages to knock away the descent of his sword, but it’s all she can manage before Roan kicks her sword away. He pauses, as if considering whether to kill her. It’s as if he’s waiting...

Clarke reaches for her gun.

She can’t reach it before Lexa goes dirty, throwing her shoulder at the inside of Roan’s knee and crippling him. She struggles to her feet and connects her heavy boot to Roan’s face--his sword goes flying as he crumples to the ground.

Lexa ignores her opportunity to finish him; she darts for both weapons and by the time Roan rises, she has them at the ready. He stumbles back, head swiveling for an answer...and he finds it in a spear-wielding tower guard, whom he knocks out with a single punch and steals his spear.

It doesn’t matter. Roan has better reach with the spear, but his strength isn’t as useful with the weapon and Lexa, with two swords, is a symphony of steel and black blood as she spins and slashes at him. She presses Roan back, and all he can manage to do is block her blows with the shaft of the spear.

Nia’s voice cries out cold and clear. “Arrest Wanheda!”

It’s as if time freezes--the crowd falls silent for a heartbeat--Nia is on her feet, pointing one long, accusatory finger right at Clarke. Even Roan and Lexa seem to slow, with Lexa half turning her head to look back at the Queen.

“She attempted to assassinate me!” Nia shouts. “There is a Sky Person traitor in our midst! She  must be executed!”

And it accomplishes exactly what it was meant to--before the crowd can so much as react to Nia’s accusation, Roan swings the spear at Lexa’s arm, knocking her sword away. She’s distracted and attempts to recover with an instinctual slash, but he parries it easily and brings the shaft down hard on her arm, jarring her second weapon out of her hand. Suddenly, she’s defenseless, the crowd is roaring for the blood of Wanheda, which is pounding in Clarke’s head, and Lexa is backpedaling fast from Roan.

This time, Clarke grabs her gun.

If it worked for Nia, it’ll work for her.

She takes aim at Nia, but the crowd begins to jostle as Roan swings the butt of the spear at Lexa’s head; she ducks, which is exactly what he wanted, as he completes his turn and swings the blade of the weapon at her back--it cuts through armor and fabric and into her skin, slicing a gash diagonally from her shoulder to hip. The cry it rips from her throat makes Clarke feel the pain in her own back, closing her throat and making her stomach flip nauseatingly.

Lexa falls. Clarke pushes her way toward the stage, but she’s not fast enough, never fast enough. The Commander is agonizing in the dust and dirt, exactly where Clarke envisioned her body, exactly what will be burned into her memory if she doesn’t do this. Now.

Roan advances on Lexa, spear raised. Clarke advances on the stage, clicking the safety off of the gun. She breaks through the crowd. She has a clear shot on Nia, who rises to her feet, bloodlust in her eyes.

“Kill her!” Nia shouts.

Roan readies the spear, examining his victim.

“KIll her,” Nia screams again. “Kill her, or you are a coward and you will never set foot in the Ice Nation again! Kill her, and then kill this Skykru traitor!”

Clarke stops short, gun raised, as Nia’s outstretched finger points at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Roan, too, pause in shock at the image of Clarke with a gun.

And that’s when Lexa strikes, She swings her legs hard and crushes the outside of Roan’s knee, using the momentum to roll out of danger, He drops to one knee as Lexa rips the spear from his grasp, knocks him out with the shaft, spins, and launches the spear right at Nia.

It’s instantaneous. With a sickening crunch and a crack that sounds like Lexa has split the trunk of a tree, the spear finds its target: Nia’s outstretched arm. It pierces skin and muscle and bone, flinging Nia back and pinning her arm to her wooden throne.

The entire city of Polis falls silent. Every eye turns to the Queen.

And Nia, pinned to the throne by a six foot spear but still very much alive, begins to laugh. She stares at her shattered and bleeding arm and laughs.

And laughs. And laughs. And laughs.

“Prince Roan has submitted,” Lexa calls. “The Ice Queen will be executed, the delegation arrested. And I...am your Commander.”

And then she collapses.

 

* 

 

All hell breaks loose.

Lexa’s guards rush her, covering her with their bodies to ensure that no traitorous souls try to turn the battle in their own favor. Ontari leaps from the stage as more guards move in to apprehend her; she disappears in the crowd, which roars their approval for their Commander and their hatred of Nia and Roan and the outraged Ice Nation delegation. They strain against the chains holding them. Titus tries to shout for order. Roan is coming to, panicked and wild-eyed in the sudden chaos. People rush each other, fights break out, Clarke is swallowed in the crowd, the guards try to keep everyone from killing each other.

And above it all, Nia continues to laugh--a wicked, maniacal laugh.

 

*

 

Clarke evades the guards in the chaos. She’s not sure if they’re even looking for her, but she races away from them anyway, through a maze of back alleys, with her eyes on the tower until she at last finds herself at it’s base. She doesn’t slow, but barges past the guards and into the tower, taking the steps two at a time.

All forty floors. Her legs shake by the time she reaches the top of the stairs, but her mind is so far away that her body doesn’t even feel real. She charges down the hallway.

But Lexa’s not in her throne room. Or in her quarters. Clarke is about to double back down and check every floor of the tower when she spies a solitary guard at the far end of the hallway, posted in front of Lexa’s war room.

"Where is she?"

If the behemoth of a guard is accustomed to being challenged by blonde women a foot and a half shorter than him and half his weight, he doesn't show it. He simply stares at her, without moving his hand from the spear at his side.

"Heda is being...attended to," he says, in halting English.

"In there?" Clarke asks with a nod to the door behind him.

He doesn't reply.

"Where. Is. She?" she repeats. Every word carries its own threat, backed up by the glare on her face.

"I am bound to guard Heda with my life. I cannot allow—"

In a motion she practiced thousands of times during her months in the forest, Clarke pulls her gun from her waistband before he can react—he stiffens at the sight of it in her hands, but instead of making him look down the muzzle, Clarke ejects the magazine, tucks it back into her pocket, and drops the gun to the floor; the clatter is deafening in the silent hallway.

"There." She doesn't break eye-contact. "The Commander of Death can't do anything without a weapon. Now let me in, before I pick it up. I need to speak to the commander."

After what just happened, part of her understands why he stares her down, refusing to move, but another part of her is itching to level the gun in his face and force him away from the door, and she's not sure she can resist that desire for much longer. She twitches down toward the gun, but finally, finally, the man steps to the side.

The end of the fight in the center of Polis, Roan unconscious and Nia pinned to her seat with a spear through her arm, had not sent Clarke's heart soaring as it should have. Instead, the image of Lexa leaning, staggering, assuring the world of her title and throne before her guards converged in on her and obscured her falling body...that image is seared into her vision, like the negative afterimage left from staring at a bright light for too long. What had happened to Ontari, what had happened to Nia, what had happened to Roan, none of that matters.

Her guards had whisked Lexa away into the heights of the commander's stronghold, and for the first time since months prior in the forest, Clarke had felt real fear when she disappeared.

It's that fear that propels her into Lexa’s war room, but the sight in front of her stops her in her tracks.

Seated on the edge of her central war table, Lexa stares straight ahead at Clarke, eyes still wild with pain-blocking adrenaline from the fight. Her armor lays scattered across the floor, leaving her only in her tank top and breeches. One arm is clutched close to her side and the other ends in a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the table beneath her. She looks smaller than ever now that she's injured and stripped of her armor, and smaller still sitting between two healers who tower over her on either side, examining her injuries.

"Commander," Clarke says, even though Lexa is already staring through her. The two healers turn in surprise.

"Clarke," Lexa replies simply, her voice tight.

She’s hurt, clearly. That much had been apparent before the fight even ended. But Clarke had expected to see Lexa in the throes of a life-saving endeavor by her healers; this, however, is darker. More painful. She is alive and suffering.

“I figured that when your guard took you…” Clarke begins.

“That I was mortally injured?” Lexa sounds as amused as one might under the conditions. “They simply stepped to my side to protect against any retaliation from Roan’s defeat. This was not the first time the Ice Queen has tried to kill me, and it will not be the last.”

“So…you’re okay.” _You’re not going to die._

Lexa understands the question. “Fine.”

She waits expectantly for whatever missive or request that was so important that Clarke force her way past the guard outside, and Clarke falters under her gaze. She can’t force herself to turn away, so, casting about for something to say, her attention lands on the wet cloth one of the healers is preparing.

"Is that clean?" she demands. Lexa raises an eyebrow. She translates to the healer in a low voice. Narrowing his eyes, the man scoffs at Clarke and turns back to his work, but Lexa pulls away from his touch.

"Leave us," she tells them, voice low.

Their unfamiliar Trigedesleng is clear protest; Lexa shakes her head over it, and speaks Clarke's tongue instead.  "Clarke is a healer as well, and I must speak to her in private. If I require you, I will send for you when we are finished."

As reluctantly as the guard outside had, the two healers nod and move past Clarke, leaving the room. Lexa looks past her, watching the door as it slowly closes, before she forces her gaze to Clarke.

"What do you need?" Lexa asks quietly.

_What does she need?_ Clarke wants to laugh. Not only because it’s absurd for Lexa to fight like that, to be wounded like that, to suffer like that, only to ask Clarke what she can do for her--but also because Clarke doesn’t know. She was so sure of her purpose when she charged in, but the sight of Lexa now...changes everything.

"I just..." she trails off, then makes her decision. “I’m just here to make sure you’re still alive. It’s better for everyone that way.”

“I’m fine,” Lexa repeats. She shifts forward as if she's going to slide off the table but stops in a sudden grimace, pressing her hand into her ribcage. Roan had caught her there in a broad swipe; Clarke assumed Lexa’s armor had absorbed the blow, but her black flood is already staining the bandages.

"Here." Clarke's old instincts take over and she is at Lexa's side in a second, offering the cloth one of the healers had left on the table. Up close, she can see a bruise forming under Lexa's eye, and a cut on her lip that, at least, has stopped bleeding.

But her back is worse. "God," Clarke mutters, leaning over Lexa's shoulder and looking at it. The thin material of her shirt is split in four or five different places, revealing messy black gashes, the largest of which spans from shoulder blade to hip.

"Fine, my ass. You need to get these cleaned."

"Veron and Calys are two of the finest healers—"

"Good for them." Striding across the room, Clarke grabs a bottle of clear liquid from one of Lexa's shelves, sniffs the lid, and scrunches her nose. "This'll work. Take off your shirt, everything needs to be sanitized before we can even look at closing them."

It doesn't sound like a strange order until she turns back around and realizes she is matter-of-factly requesting the disrobing of the Commander of the Thirteen Clans.

Lexa, understandably, stares blankly at her.

"Is there a particular reason you're here, Clarke?" she asks.

"I don't—" Clarke falters, but recovers almost instantly. "You said it yourself, even the Commander of Death is a healer. If you don't want my help, I can leave."

After a moment of careful consideration of what seems like a challenge, Lexa reaches for the hem of her undershirt and pulls, not up, but forward. The already split fabric pops and rips; Clarke furrows her brow until she recognizes that Lexa’s ginger movements are to protect an injured shoulder. When the tattered pieces of the shirt float down to the floor, Lexa is left in only a thin band of fabric wrapped around her chest.

She drops her gaze, avoiding Clarke’s eyes. Clarke understands: for both of them, there is little difference between physical vulnerability and emotional vulnerability. Lexa’s armor is part of her, her clothing is part of her. Clarke, though she feels sympathy for Lexa, is suddenly grateful for her own heavy coat and leather.

She tries to preserve Lexa’s dignity as much as possible as she steps around the back of the table, but her breath catches in her throat when she sees what Lexa’s torn shirt has revealed. Her back is the canvas for a tattoo that runs down her spine from shoulder blades to hips, intricate swirls and lines and lettering weaving together to form a single image that is almost dizzying in it's complexity. For all the Grounder tattoos on display, Clarke hasn't seen anything like it in her time on the ground; it's something that must have taken days, and it's something that should be appreciated for years.

The art fans out from her spine like wings, accentuating the rises and valleys of her muscles, but it's marred by old scars and her fresh wounds.

The Commander fights the battles, and Lexa carries the scars. Each one is a memory; Clarke can’t even begin to imagine the history of Lexa’s skin.

With a shake of her head, Clarke realizes that that is what she should be focusing on. She's here for a reason. Staring isn't it.

She clears her throat. "Uh, hand me the gauze, there."

"Veron and Calys were quite capable of attending to my wounds," Lexa says as Clarke pours the alcohol over the gauze.

"Veron and Calys didn't know what the hell they were doing," Clarke retorts. "Hold still."

Before she can respond, Clarke presses the soaked gauze to a gash across Lexa's shoulder blade, forcing her silent. She lets the girl adjust to the sting for a moment before she gently starts cleaning the area.

"You don't have to do this," Lexa says once Clarke pulls the antiseptic away.

"And you didn't have to rise to his fight. Titus and I were basically begging you."

"I had to. Nia would have seized control of the coalition otherwise.”

Clarke shrugs, focusing on a lower, deeper cut a few inches below the first. "At the very least, you could have defended your back a little better. I watched you throw a knife through a man's arm from twenty yards."

"As I do not presume to lecture you on healing, even though I likely should," Lexa growls, now out of thinly-veiled irritation rather than pain, "You should not lecture me on battle tactics."

"You know what? You're right."

And when Clarke splashes a new length of gauze with alcohol, she does it sloppily enough to ensure that half of the liquid cascades down onto Lexa's back, into her open wounds. Lexa shouts in pain and her back arches forward, every muscle clenching suddenly. Clarke feels a savage rush of satisfaction bloom in her chest at the sound; luckily, Lexa does not look back at her and see the small smirk on her face.

Lexa bites down on her lower lip after that, partially to keep from responding and partially to hold back the small cries and gasps of pain whenever Clarke moves to a new tender spot, and the moments pass in silence. Lexa does manage to swallow most of the sounds she makes, but whenever one manages to escape her self-control, it sends heat prickling up Clarke's spine.

She likes the idea that even Lexa has a breaking point.

And Clarke is rougher than she should be in order to elicit those sounds, quite honestly. Her doctor's instincts keep her hands steady around in the injured flesh but when she's simply cleaning the blood and sweat and dirt from the uninjured parts of Lexa's back, she thinks back to the months she spent in the forest and lets her anger bleed into her finger tips, taking it out on Lexa's tattoo.

"Is it nice to finally feel something?" she asks sarcastically.

Lexa exhales, her breath shaking. "Yes."

Clarke's body jolts at the single word, heat and electricity shocking down her spine into her stomach.

She loses herself for half a second in the detail of part of the tattoo that slices forward over Lexa's ribcage, and presses down on an open wound with too much for and from the wrong angle: Lexa lets out a sharp cry of pain as the skin rips open, unlike anything Clarke has heard before.

"Shit," Clarke says, this time taking no satisfaction in hearing whimpers of strained Trig prayers tumble past Lexa's lips as she tries to regain control. "Lexa, I'm sorry. I'm—"

She drops the gauze and places her palm flat against Lexa's back, leaning close and lowering her voice. "Relax, relax this muscle," she murmurs softly, stroking the skin, "Just listen to me. You're okay. Breathe. Breathe."

Lexa lets out a string of Trigedasleng curse words, slamming her first down onto the table.

"I know, I know. You’re all right. Breathe.”

The whimpers die slowly as Clarke hums over them, a steady presence with both voice and hand as she brushes back and forth over Lexa's tattoo and tries to draw her focus from the pain.

"You're lucky none of these need to be stitched or cauterized," she says once Lexa is able to hear her again. "But I do need to clean this last one before I can bandage it."

Lexa nods, and Clarke keeps talking as she prepares the gauze. "I guess now you can lecture me on healing too, after that. I deserve it, after all the punishment you took to protect my people."

"I thought where you’re from people just said thank you."

Clarke bites back a smile. "What happened to ‘mockery is not the product of a strong mind?’"

"Do I look particularly strong right now, Clarke?"

Before Clarke presses the cloth down for the final time, she surveys the expanse of Lexa’s back. It is a canvas of everything she has ever endured. The tattoos tell a story that Clarke does not know. The scars tell a darker one. And the angry red wounds...will be a story for a future.

“Yes, you do look strong. Now, this is the last one.”

And then she has an idea--she reaches forward with her free hand. Hesitates. Then reaches forward once more.

“Here.”

Her fingers pry Lexa’s hand from the table edge and snake into her grip, letting the other girl clench her fingers around something more forgiving than the stone as Clarke cleans the last wound. It’s strange; it’s not a place she ever pictured she’d be. But this is for a valid reason, a mundane one--she forces herself to think nothing of it. But it’s hard to ignore the feel of Lexa’s hand in hers.

Regardless, the contact helps Lexa. She doesn't make a sound until she's done, her whole body holding it back, until she sighs with relief when she feels Clarke pull away.

Everything seems to bleed out of her after that--the adrenaline, the pain, the fight, all slowly slip away as Clarke moves from cleaning the wounds to bandaging Lexa's back and side. And feeling Lexa relax beneath her hands quiets something in Clarke, too. She becomes readily aware of the proximity of Lexa's skin, the quickening of her breath. Lexa shakes her head when Clarke asks if something's wrong.

“I need you to hold the start of this bandage against your chest, here,” Clarke says, moving to stand in front of Lexa. She presses lightly on the one on Lexa’s side. “I need to wrap it.”

Lexa obeys without response. She holds the folded gauze over her injury and Clarke can feel Lexa’s eyes on her as she winds the bandage around Lexa’s chest and behind her back, but she doesn’t look up to meet them. She’s focused: Just get it done, then step back. But the heat that seems to radiate from Lexa’s skin scrambles her thoughts whenever she steps forward to wrap the bandage behind Lexa’s back.

More than once, her hands slip from bandage to body. Lexa’s body ripples as if Clarke’s fingers are dipping into a still pool of water, rather than grazing skin.

“Tighter,” Lexa whispers, shifting slightly.

Clarke exhales through her flared nostrils and unwinds two loops. She has to brace one hand on Lexa’s sharp hipbone to give her the leverage to pull the bandage tight against her skin. When she finally does get it knotted securely…she lets her other hand drop to Lexa’s hips and sits back to examine her work.

“Is that okay?” she asks.

“It’s fine.”

“So you’re okay.”

Lexa nods.

Clarke has to tear her eyes away from Lexa’s gaze, but they only drift down to where her hands are still soft on Lexa’s hipbones—she stares as if they’re not her hands, and she can’t understand why she can’t let go. She can feel the skin beneath her fingers but everything else is numb and shaking.

“Clarke.”

That does it for her. Lexa’s gentle prompt enables Clarke to pull back, despite the disappointed look on Lexa’s face that says it’s the opposite of what she wanted. Nonetheless, she builds up her facade of propriety as Clarke backs off.

“Do you have another shirt?” Clarke mutters, casting around the room to avoid looking at her.

Lexa points. “I had the healers bring more robes. In the corner, there.”

She tries to shift off the table, but Clarke moves quicker, grabbing the robes and carrying them back. Clarke waits to the side while Lexa dresses, not offering help in order to protect Lexa’s pride as much as her dignity. But as her eyes wander the war room, her mind wanders too--and before she realizes it, she’s spouting the question.

“What happened with Nia and Costia?”

It opens a far greater wound than the one on her back. Lexa finishes pulling the robe on and cinches it tight across her chest, wincing. She battles the pain with the same clenched-teeth resolve as she did with the gash from the spear, but she’s unable to look away from Clarke’s gaze, and after a moment, her will dissolves and the memories flash over her face.

“Over the course of two years, waging war against both the Ice Nation and the Mountain Men, I had pulled eleven clans together into the Coalition. Nia knew our strength was too much for her army; she pivoted. She captured Costia...and baited me. I returned to my chambers one night and found…”

Lexa falters, face twisting with the pain of the memory. “I found Costia’s head in my bed. Courtesy of Nia.”

Clarke puts the pieces together for her, trying to spare Lexa the pain of recounting it. “So you attacked,” she leads, remembering what Roan said.

Lexa nods. “We attacked. I led the forces. Nia’s defense was...I didn’t realize it at the time. I thought that because we were cutting down armies of a few hundred, Nia was already weakened. What I didn’t understand was that with every man I killed trying to get to Nia and avenge Costia, was placed there for me to kill. We had an army of thousands, and swept aside dozens of Ice Nation warriors each battle. It was too easy. I had nearly reached the Capitol when I realized that was Nia’s plan all along. My own warriors and advisers were whispering about my inability to lead, about my violence, the bloodshed, the unnecessary savagery against the Ice Nation warriors. The citizens of the Ice Nation, the noncombatants, were terrified of me. I had pulled the Coalition together by convincing the clans of the beauty of peace and dignity and building a better world, and as soon as I had their weight behind me, I became a butcher.”

Clarke’s heart breaks. She knows where this story leads for Lexa.

“And I did it because of my love and passion for Costia. The moment I realized that...I cut all of it out, like an infection. I became as dispassionate as possible; the numbness does not make me happy, but I could not afford that weakness hindering my leadership. I pulled the armies back. I offered Nia surrender and survival, which was exactly what she wanted. She exiled Roan as a show of good faith, ingratiated herself into my Coalition...and has been trying to take control of it ever since.”

“Lexa…”

“That’s why I don’t mind if you hate me, Clarke,” Lexa says, meeting her gaze now. “As long as you feel something. Because I know that feeling _anything_ is better than an endless, freezing numbness. And if hate is borne from passion, then at least you felt that for me once, however briefly and however unacknowledged, and that is enough. As long as I can keep you safe, it will be enough for me to know that you felt that for me once, no matter how you feel now or will feel in the future. But please...don’t let that hate lead you into what you tried to do to Nia. Don’t let it put you or the people you love at risk, because if you do, it will send you spiraling back into that endless numbness again and I...don’t want that for you. You deserve better.”

She ends her speech with a note of finality that does not expect response, and Clarke doesn’t even have it in her to muster up the breath to repeat Lexa’s name. Maybe, if she had more time with her, but Lexa now looks shaky and uncertain in the sudden silence and she moves toward the door, trying to draw herself up to face her guards and waiting healers.

“Thank you, Lexa,” Clarke blurts just as she reaches it.

Lexa glances back at her and nods and. “Clarke...Can I ask something of you?”

“Anything.”

“Never again, will you seek to act on my behalf at the threat of your own. Killing for you, starting wars for you, dying for you...I swore fealty to you--those honors are mine, and mine alone.”

A weight lifts from Clarke’s shoulders.

“Do you ever talk about anything other than your death?” she asks.

The ghost of a smile dances across Lexa’s lips when she realizes Clarke is only teasing her, but her eyes remain soft and serious.

“Just promise me. Please.”

“I can’t promise that.”

Her smile flickers wider.

“Try.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come and talk to me on tumblr @centuriesofexistence!! Also, here is the place for a special shoutout to the wonderful donors who have helped my girlfriend and I out in a time of need, and a very special shoutout to the generosity of a certain Good Doc. We're endlessly appreciative, just like I am endlessly appreciative of all the support and comments and feedback and love you all give me. I hope you enjoy! xx


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